" asked the young man.

The other shook his head. He was himself a beautiful horseman of the Tom
Cannon school; too beautiful, his critics sometimes said, to be entirely
effective.

"Not for 'chasin," he said. "You can't lift a horse and squeeze him,
unless you've got your legs curled right away round him. They ain't
jockeys, as I tells 'em. They rides like poodle-dogs at a circus. There
ought to be paper-'oops for em to jump through. No, sir. It may be
Chukkers, as I says, but it ain't 'orsemanship."

The young man angled for the story that was waiting to be caught.

"Yet Chukkers wins," he said. "He's headed the list for five seasons
now."

"He wins," said Monkey grimly. "Them as has rode against him knows 'ow."

Silver edged his pony up along the other.

"You've ridden against him?" he inquired with cunning innocence.

The little jockey's eyes became dreamy.

"My ole pal Chukkers," he mused. "Him and me. Yes, I've rode agin' him
twenty year now. He was twelve first time we met, and I was turned
twenty. The Mexican Kid they called him in them days. Kid he was; but
wise to the world?--not 'alf!" ...

"Was that his first race?" asked Silver.

"It was so, sir--this side. Ikey'd just brought him across the Puddle to
ride that Austrian mare, Laria Louisa. Same old stunt it was then as
now--_Down the Englishman, don't matter how._ Yes, it was my first smell
of the star-spangled jacket."

"Was that when you got your leg?"

"No, sir. That was eight years later. Boomerang's year. He was the first
waler Ikey brought over this side to do the trick. My! he were a proper
great 'orse, too. I was riding Chittabob--like a pony alongside him. At
the Canal Turn Chukkers ran me onto the rails." He told the tale slowly,
rolling it in the mouth, as it were. "Chukkers went on by himself.
Nobody near him. Thought he'd done it that time. Only where it was
Boomerang snap his leg at the last fence. Yes, sir," mystically,
"there's One above all right--sometimes, 'tall events."

"And you?" said Silver.

The little jockey thrust out his left leg.

"I was in 'orspital three months.... Howsomever, it come out in the wash
next year."

"That was Cannibal's year, wasn't it?" asked Silver.

"Ah!" said Monkey. "Cannibal!--his name and his nature, too. He was a
man-eater, that 'orse was. Look like a camel and lep like a
h'earthquake. It was just the very reverse that year. Chukkers was on
Jezebel, Chukkers was. She was a varmint li