"Dad's gone an hour since," said Boy.
She led the way swiftly down long stone passages out into the yard. He followed, his eyes on that shining bunch of hair before him.
The yard looked deserted. The fan-tails strutted vaingloriously; Maudie lay in the sun on the stable wall; and Billy Bluff's kennel was empty.
"Hullo, where's Bill?" cried the young man.
"Some idiot's let him off his chain," grumbled the girl. "Just like them. A hunting morning."
A great gray horse, led by little Jerry, was feeling his way through the stable-door. Banjo stood seventeen hands or over, but he was all quality. His long neck was hog-maned; and his Roman nose and sober colour gave him an air of wisdom and experience which a somewhat frivolous character belied.
Young Lollypop, a brown three-year-old, followed demurely behind. For all his sixteen hands, he looked a mere stripling beside the gray; but he was far too tall for the girl to mount without assistance. Stanley went for a bucket, but before he could return Silver had shot the girl into the saddle, and stood a moment looking up at her with eyes in which laughter and admiration mingled.
The girl seemed so slight and yet so masterful on these great larruping thoroughbreds she always rode!
Young Lollypop had the callow and awkward ways of a young giraffe, but, though only a three-year-old, he was sedate as an old maid and had the dignity of a churchwarden. His behaviour was an example to his flippant colleague.
For Banjo, directly he felt his master on his back, began to galumph about the yard with a clatter of hoofs among the injured fan-tails and to the discomfiture of Maudie.