There was more than a suspicion among the crowd that Lean had purposely arranged this little diversion in order that he might go out without weighing—an obvious advantage to him, I having already weighed.
One thing he had succeeded in doing—delaying the race until the sun had set and dusk began to fall, making it almost impossible to see across the course in the open, much less in the needle-bush.
There were, of course, only Barmaid and Pawnbroker to run, and I felt none too comfortable as Lean pulled his great brown beast up to my side and looked the mare over. When the flag fell he went away in the lead, evidently intending to repeat his crossing trick, but I lay back a good two lengths behind. After the second fence he slackened pace to let me creep up, but I touched the mare smartly with the whip and shot away in front. I did this so suddenly that he, holding his horse as he was at the moment, was some seconds before he could get going again. Then we both steadied and took the third jump carefully. Between the third and last fences was the clump of needle-bush, extending for about three hundred yards. These trees, as I said, grow in a loose reddish sand, and the going there was very heavy, while the needle-like foliage was so dense that I knew nothing could be seen of the race from the point where the people were. As I approached this point I remembered Brady's words, "Don't let him be too close to you in the needle-bush."
I felt that I had had enough of it all; a three-mile steeplechase is no joke for a youngster, and it was my first race. Lean, I knew, was a very bad man, and would not hesitate to settle me. So, determined to get my ordeal over, I plied my whip, and we literally flew. Pawnbroker, however, being the stronger horse, gained on me every stride in the sand, and it was with a gasp of terror that I presently saw his tan muzzle at my stirrup. "Barmaid! Barmaid!" I cried, as with tiring arm I coiled the whalebone round her flanks, but still that brown head and red, expanded nostril crept along her side. Then I felt a hand snatch at my shoulder. Grasping the rolled blanket on my saddle with one hand, I turned and lashed fiercely at my opponent's face.
With a curse of fury he swayed in the saddle and his horse dropped a little back. Next, grasping his whip, he aimed a blow at me with the handle which would have answered his purpose had it got home, but it fell just too short, and striking the mare just behind the saddle simply served to quicken her pace.
He caught me no more. The last fence I took alone, he coming along steadily some four or five lengths behind. Fearful and excited, however, I finished, using the whip as though running a dead-heat with the Evil One himself.
I told my uncle and Brady what had happened, of course, but, as they said, it was no use complaining; it would only be my word against his. And so the matter ended, Brady rewarding me for winning the race with a silver watch and chain.
Lean, under his proper name, afterwards became a notorious racing swindler, and was warned off most of the principal courses in Australia. He ended his days, appropriately enough, as lessee of one of the lowest "pubs" in Broken Hill.