"Don't you believe in it?" asked the young man.
The other shook his head. He was himself a beautiful horseman of the Tom Cannon school; too beautiful, his critics sometimes said, to be entirely effective.
"Not for 'chasin," he said. "You can't lift a horse and squeeze him, unless you've got your legs curled right away round him. They ain't jockeys, as I tells 'em. They rides like poodle-dogs at a circus. There ought to be paper-'oops for em to jump through. No, sir. It may be Chukkers, as I says, but it ain't 'orsemanship."
The young man angled for the story that was waiting to be caught.
"Yet Chukkers wins," he said. "He's headed the list for five seasons now."
"He wins," said Monkey grimly. "Them as has rode against him knows 'ow."
Silver edged his pony up along the other.
"You've ridden against him?" he inquired with cunning innocence.
The little jockey's eyes became dreamy.
"My ole pal Chukkers," he mused. "Him and me. Yes, I've rode agin' him twenty year now. He was twelve first time we met, and I was turned twenty. The Mexican Kid they called him in them days. Kid he was; but wise to the world?—not 'alf!" ...