"Always the same," whispered Ginger. "In a terrible hurry to get there."
He had the true Putnam feeling about Jaggers; but that passion of devotion for the mare, which had inspired the English-speaking race for the past year, had not left him untouched. Jim Silver felt the little prosaic man thrilling at his side, and thrilled in his turn. He felt as he had felt when as a Lower Boy at Eton the Captain of the Boats had spoken to him—a swimming in the eyes, a brimming of the heart, a gulping at the throat.
"Is that Mocassin?" he called to the lad riding the mare.
"That's the Queen o' Kentucky, sir," replied the other cockily. "Never was beaten, and never will be—given fair play."
"Done your gallop?"
"Half an hour since."
Ginger drove on discreetly.
On a knoll, three hundred yards away, four men were standing.
"There they are!" said Ginger. "Pretty, ain't they?—specially Chukkers. I don't know who that fat feller is along of 'em."
But Silver knew very well.