There were no horses to confuse the big youngster. He fled along at a pace which no one could possibly hope the dun to keep up with.
"All over," said Darby, putting up a pair of totally useless glasses, for it was growing quite dusk. "Poor Rourke won't see the way the other is going in half a mile."
But to everyone's astonishment the dun horse and quietly-dressed rider clung obstinately close to the comet-like flash of Dan Rooney's pink jacket. The rider of That's the Boy shook up the big horse to a pace which set him sprawling, and all but resulted in disaster at a bank. Sobered by this, he looked back angrily and pulled his horse together; he was a fine rider. Still going quite easily and slugging hard against his bit, the dun was close behind. Rooney sat forward, using as much jockey fashion as he could master, bumping uncomfortably at his jumps.
"Did ye dhrug him?" hurled Rooney over an irate shoulder, "that I can hear him so long?"
"Three gallons of whisky. Was it cloryform yours got?" was Rourke's reply, his tone preoccupied, for they were nearing the nasty little scramble in and out of the boreen.
Gheena and Darby had cut the two racers off at this point, and listened, smiling, to them.
"But I never saw Rooney adopt Tod Sloan's style before," said Darby; "and if he can't get the horse together, he'll fall at the boreen."
That's the Boy, consummately handled, dropped in and out just without a fall; the dun struck the far fence hard, grunted, and bundled somehow into the far field, shooting his rider off. With the boreen behind him and Rourke down, Rooney cheered as he galloped on.
But the fall took little more time than a clean jump would have done. James Rourke was up again as soon as his horse and sat back suddenly.
"Be dam to where the weight is! How can he win if it is not there at all!" he stormed as he changed his seat.