out of the bucket. I had
no possible means of knowing that she had not, and yet I felt sure, with
Ben, that there had been oatmeal in the bucket, and that Vixen, who,
until it had got about that Paul Griffith was to ride Boatman, had been
first favourite for the Yanyilla Steeplechase, was being fed. I rode
right up to the tent in order to be quite sure, and saw on the grass
where the bucket had stood, a few white grains as of oatmeal, and Ben,
whose eyes were keener for that sort of thing, saw them too. But what
could we do? It was quite the thing for the horses that were going to
run in the grass-fed steeplechase to be carefully fed by their owners
or backers on some place where the grass seemed fresher, greener, and
sweeter than anywhere else. About twenty horsts were entered, and all
along the banks of the Yanyilla and Telowie Creeks, just before the race
meeting, you might come across camps such as Ben and I had struck this
morning. Boatman himself was camped not a mile from the house by the big
water-hole, and thither went my father and Paul every day to see that
he was getting on all right. Even now I don't understand my father's
conduct; you 'd think no sensible man would have seriously considered
the foolish wager he had made, and yet I had a feeling that he cared
very little about his own horse's chances and a great deal about
Vixen's. He used to laugh to Paul and say, "He's good enough; he's good
enough." But in the evening, after a glass or two of Battle-axe brandy,
my mother and I heard quite a different story. Boatman's chances grew
very small, and Boatman's vices were so magnified that I could not sleep
for fear. And when I told my sweetheart he only laughed, and said he
knew the old horse now a good deal better than his master, and though he
was a bad-tempered old brute there was not a horse in the colony could
touch him, once you took him the right way. It was like a woman to be
so full of fears and forebodings, and this morning, now that I seemed
to have good ground for them, my fears redoubled, and Ben and I, in our
excitement, fairly raced those milkers home, for which my mother very
properly scolded me well. That troubled me little enough. I was all
anxiety to see Paul, and waited down at the little camp watching Boatman
crop the grass till he paid his daily visit, and then I poured into
his ears all my fears. And Hope--he only laughed, turned up my face and
kissed me, and laughed at my discovery and