Jake got to his feet with the quiet, purposeful movement of a man who has work before him. He gripped Capper's hand for a moment, and looked him straight in the face.
"I reckon you're right, sir," he said, speaking rather heavily. "I've made a damn' muddle of the whole show. I was nearer to her--several lengths nearer--in the old days when we were just friends--just friends--" his voice quivered slightly--"than I am now. Well, I reckon I must get back to the old footing. We'll be--just friends--again."
He turned from Capper with the words, went to the mantelpiece and took up his pipe.
The doctor watched him for awhile silently. There was a greatness about the man's simplicity that commanded his respect. There was even an element of the superb in it.
"I take off my hat, to you, Jake," he said at length "You're a white man."
Jake's head was bent over his pipe. He made a brief, contemptuous sound, and rammed it into his mouth. "We don't all think alike," he said. "Well, I must be going anyway. So long, Doc!"
"Where are you off to?" Capper asked.
He made a gesture as of one who contemplates an unpleasant task. "I must go up to the Castle. I said I would. I've got to tell Lord Saltash how the Albatross failed this afternoon."
"But, man, he knows!" exclaimed Capper. "He was there!"
Jake turned round. His pipe was alight. He puffed at it grimly. "Maybe he does. But it's my duty to tell him all the same. It may interest him also to hear that Stevens won't be fit for the saddle again for a week or two. I'd have marked the young blackguard for life if I hadn't been stopped." His brows suddenly met fiercely. "I'd have got out of him what he did it for too--though I guess I know. When a hot favourite like the Albatross gets left behind like that there's always a reason--a damn' substantial reason--at the bottom of it. Oh, it's a foul business," he said bitterly. "I ought to have scratched sooner than run the chance of having him pulled. I never trusted Stevens--never. I'll see him drawn and quartered before he ever rides another horse of mine!"