Together we entered the paddock, where hostlers and jockeys were grooming the beautiful, slender horses, and though I longed to linger, I dared not stay longer than to hug one splendid mare and whisper in her listening, silky ears that she was a beauty without peer.
The boy who was washing her sourly warned me off, doubtless fearing the touch of a stranger, lest he prove one of those miscreants who harm horses. So I passed on, nodding good-bye to the lovely mare, Heather-Bee, as she was called by the name stitched on her blanket.
In the rear of the paddock a path led through a gate and up the wooded knoll. I looked around for Mount; he was plaintively helping himself to a cup of water from the horse-trough spring, so I waited. And, as I stood there, down the path came two fat people, a lady and her escort, picking their way with all the majesty of elephants. I knew Lady Shelton at once; none could mistake that faded and moon-like face with the little selfish under-lip and the folded creases beside a mouth which was made only for feeding. None could mistake those little fat feet, trotting under the daintily raised petticoat.
She scarcely deigned to glance at me; the gentleman beside her paid me no attention; and I was thankful enough that Lady Shelton had not recognized me.
They were waddling down the paddock some distance away when Mount rejoined me, complaining of the cheerless draught which my obstinacy had compelled him to swallow, and we passed the gate and ascended the pretty slope.
We were, perhaps, half-way up the slope, when I heard a footstep behind us and glanced back. What was my astonishment to behold the Weasel trotting along at our heels.
"Where on earth did you come from?" I asked.
"From the 'Virginia Arms,'" he replied, seriously. "I like to be near Jack."
Mount, in pleased surprise, had already laid his great paw on the Weasel's shoulder. Now he smiled at the little careworn man with wonderful tenderness. It was strange, the affection between these two roaming men, the naïve fidelity of the Weasel, the fostering care of the younger giant, whose attitude was sometimes fatherly, sometimes filial.
The Weasel looked back at the course where, already, the bell was striking to warn the jockeys, and where, one after another, the horses cantered out to the judges' stand and stood restively, or backed and pirouetted and reared in the sunshine.