'Well, bring him over and we'll try. The result should give us some idea of how this chap can go.'
'By the way, you've never told me his name.'
'He is called The Unknown, if that tells you anything.'
'Not much,' I answered, at the same time giving a final glance at the beautiful animal now undergoing his toilet. He had only one blemish as far as I could see, and I had to look him over pretty closely to find it, and that was a small, white mark on the point of the bone of his near hock. It caught the eye, and, as I thought, looked unsightly. Just as we were leaving the box, Pete, who was behind me, suddenly stopped, and turned angrily on the man sponging the horse's legs.
'You clumsy fool,' he cried, 'are you quite without sense? One more piece of forgetfulness like that and you'll spoil everything.'
What it was that he complained of I could not say, for when I turned round he was carefully examining the horse's off fore knee, but the man he addressed looked woefully distressed.
'Attend to that at once,' said Pete, with an ugly look upon his face. 'And let me catch you neglecting your duties again, and I'll call in the One-eyed Doctor to you. Just you remember that.'
Then taking my arm, Pete drew me across the yard back to the house. There I took a glass of grog, and, after a little conversation, bade him good-bye.
It was a lovely night when I left the house and started for home. A young moon lay well down upon the opposite hilltop, and her faint light sparkled on the still water of the creek. Now and again a night bird hooted in the scrub, and once or twice 'possums ran across and scuttled up into the trees to right and left of my path. My thoughts were still full of my awkward position, but I would not alter my determination a jot; I had only one regret, and that was my conduct towards Sheilah. From the place where I stood by the ford I could see the light of her bedroom window shining distinctly as a star down the valley. I watched it till my eyes ached, then, with a heavy sigh, continued my walk up the hill, and, having reached the house, went straight to bed.
On the morning appointed for the trial I was up before it was light, had saddled old Benbow, whom I had kept in the stable for two days, so that he might be the fitter for the work which would be required of him, and was at the Sugarloaf Hill just as the first signs of dawn were making their appearance. I had not long to wait before the others put in an appearance—Pete mounted on the handsome black I have elsewhere described, and the man he had called Dick on The Unknown. We greeted each other, and then set to work arranging preliminaries.