of him. But that's the way of the
world all over. He ain't the only one.

As for father, he was like me, and looked on the notion as rank
foolishness. He swore straight on end for about twenty minutes, and then
said he expected Starlight would have his own way as usual; but he'd
play at that game once too often. He supposed he'd be left in the Hollow
all by himself, with Warrigal and the dog for company.

'Warrigal goes with me--might want him,' says Starlight. 'You're losing
your nerve, governor. Perhaps you'd like to go to the ball too?'

Father gave a sort of growl, and lit his pipe and wouldn't say no more.
Starlight and I regular talked it out, and, after I'd heard all he had
to say, it didn't look quite so impossible as it did at first. We were
to work apart. He was to get in with some of the betting men or sporting
people that always came to country races, and I was to find out some
of our old digger mates and box up with them. Warrigal would shift for
himself and look after the horses, and have them ready in case we had to
clear at short notice.

'And who was to enter Rainbow and look after him?'

'Couldn't we get old Jacob Benton; he's the best trainer I've seen since
I left home? Billy the Boy told us the other day he was out of a job,
and was groom at Jonathan's; had been sacked for getting drunk, and so
on. He'll be all the more likely to keep sober for a month.'

'The very man,' I said. 'He can ride the weight, and train too. But we
can't have him here, surely!'

'No; but I can send the horse to him at Jonathan's, and he can get him
fit there as well as anywhere. There's nearly a month yet; he's pretty
hard, and he's been regularly exercised lately.'

Jacob Benton was a wizened, dried-up old Yorkshireman. He'd been head
man in a good racing stable, but drink had been the ruin of him--lost
him his place, and sent him out here. He could be trusted to go right
through with a job like ours, for all that. Like many men that drink
hard, he was as sober as a judge between one burst and another. And once
he took over a horse in training he touched nothing but water till the
race was run and the horse back in his box. Then he most times went in
an awful perisher--took a month to it, and was never sober day or night
the whole time. When he'd spent all his money he'd crawl out of the
township and get away into the country more dead than alive, and take
the first job that offered. But he was fonder of training