That night he slipped through the dark, like a hyena pup, to Ringwood. That the stable was locked mattered not. More than once, out of laziness, Shandy had shirked going to Mike's quarters for the keys and had found ingress by a small window, a foot square, through which the soiled straw bedding was thrown into the yard. Standing on the dung heap, Shandy worked open the board slide that closed this window, and wormed his weasel-form through the small opening. He passed down the passage between the stalls and entered a saddle room at the farther end.
“The bloomin' thing used to be on the fourth peg,” he muttered, drawing his small figure up on tiptoe and feeling along the wall for something. “Blow me!” and he chuckled fiendishly as his fingers encountered the cold steel of a bit, “I'd know that snaffle in hell, if I got a feel of it.”
There was a patent device of a twist and a loose ring in the center of the bit he clutched, which Porter had devised for Diablo's hard mouth.
Shandy gave the bridle a swing, and it clattered to the floor from its peg. Diablo snorted and pawed the planks of his stall nervously.
“All right, my buck,” hissed Shandy, “you wait till to-morror; you'll git the run of yer life, I'm thinkin', damn their eyes!” and he went off into a perfect torrent of imprecation against everybody at Ringwood, hushing his voice to a snarling whisper. Then he shut the door of the saddle room, sat down on the floor and pulled from his pocket a knife and stub of candle. He lighted the latter and held it flame down till a few drops of wax formed a tiny lake; into this he stuck the candle upright, shielding its flame with his coat. He opened the knife and laying it down, inspected minutely the bridle which lay across his leg.
“It's Diablo's right enough,” he said; “I couldn't be mistook on the bit, nor them strong lines.”
He picked up the knife, and holding the leather rein across the palm of his left hand started to saw it gently with the blade. Almost instantly he left off. “Of all the bloomin' ijits! God drat me fer a goat! He'd feel that cut the first slip through his fingers the leather took.”
He gathered in the rein until he had it six inches from the bit. There he cut, stopping many times, and doubling the leather close to the light to see how deep he had penetrated.
“There, Mr. Bloody Ned!” he exclaimed at last, as inspection showed that only the outer hard shell of the leather remained intact. “That'll just hold till the Black takes one of his cranky spells, an' you give him a stiff pull. God help you then!” Even this was a blasphemous cry of exultation; not a plea for divine assistance for the man he plotted against.
His next move proved that his cunning was of an exceptional order. From his coat pocket he brought forth a pill box. In this receptacle Shandy dipped a forefinger, and rubbed into the fresh cut of the leather a trifle of blackened axle grease which he had taken from a wagon wheel before starting out. Then he wiped the rein with his coat tail and looked at it admiringly.