st of us have our redeeming features. And Chukkers with
all his crude defects possessed at least one outstanding
virtue--faithfulness--to the man who had made him. Ikey had brought
him as a lad into the country where he had made his name; Ikey had
given him his chance; to Ikey for twenty-five years now he had stuck
with unswerving devotion, in spite of temptation manifold,
often-repeated, and aggravated. The relations between the two men were
the subject of much gossip. They never talked of each other; and
though often together, very rarely spoke. Chukkers was never known to
express admiration or affection or even respect for his master. But
the bond between them was intimate and profound. It was notorious that
the jockey would throw over the Heir to the Throne himself at the last
moment to ride for the little Levantine. And of late years it had been
increasingly rare for him to sport any but the star-spangled jacket.

Ikey Aaronsohnn, the third of the famous Three, walked between the other
two, as befitted the brain and purse of the concern. He was a typical
Levantine, Semitic, even Simian, small-featured, and dark. In his youth
he must have been pretty, and there was still a certain charm about him.
He had qualities, inherent and super-imposed, entirely lacking to his
two colleagues. A man of education and some natural refinement, he had a
delicious sense of humour which helped him to an enjoyment of life and
such a genial appreciation of his own malpractices and those of others
as to make him the best of company and far the most popular of the Three
J's.

If Chukkers was little more than an animal-riding animal, and Jaggers an
artistic fraud, Ikey was a rascal of a highly differentiated and
engaging type. A man of admirable tenacity he had clung for twenty-five
years to the ideal which Chukkers's discovery of Mocassin two years
since had brought within his grasp.

The disqualification of the mare at Liverpool last year after the great
race had served only to whet his appetite and kindle his faith.

A quarter of a century before he had set himself to find the horse that
would beat the English thoroughbred at Aintree. And in Mocassin he had
at last achieved his aim.

* * * * *

If a cloud of romance hung about the mare, veiling in part her past,
some points at least stood out clear.

It was known that her dam was a Virginian mare of the stately kind which
of late years has filled