Part 8 (1/2)

'I am much happier. I thank you, Jim, from the bottom of my heart. For I know you well enough to be sure that if you have once given your word you will stick to it. G.o.d bless you.'

'G.o.d bless you, Sheilah. And now I must be off. Good-bye.'

'Good-bye.'

I jumped on to my horse, and, waving my hand to her, went back up the track to the towns.h.i.+p with a strange foreboding in my heart that her prophecy would some day be realised.

CHAPTER IV

THE RACE

Slowly the month rolled by, and every day brought the fatal races nearer, till at last only a week separated us from them. With each departing day a greater nervousness took possession of me. I tried to reason it out, but without success. As far as I could see, I had nothing very vital to fear! I might lose the esteem of the grey heads of the towns.h.i.+p, it was true, and possibly get into trouble with my father--but beyond those two unpleasantnesses I was unable to see that anything serious could happen to me.

Since giving him my promise I had only once set eyes on Whispering Pete.

To tell the truth, I felt a desire to keep out of his way. At the same time, however, I had not the very slightest intention of going back on my promise to ride for him. At last, one morning, I met him riding through the towns.h.i.+p on a skittish young thoroughbred. As usual he was scrupulously neat in his dress, and, when he stopped to speak to me, his beady black eyes shone down on me like two live coals.

'You're not going to throw me over about that race are you, Jim?' he said, after we had pulled up our horses and saluted each other.

'What should make you think so?' I answered. 'When I give my word I don't go back on it as a general rule.'

'Of course, you don't,' he replied; 'I know that. But I heard yesterday that the folk in the towns.h.i.+p had been trying to persuade you to withdraw your offer. The time is drawing close now, and I shall have the horse up here to-night. Come over in the evening and have a look at him, and then in the morning, if you're agreeable and have nothing better to do, we might try him against your horse Benbow, who, I take it, is the best animal in the district. What do you say?'

'I'm quite willing,' I answered. 'And where do you intend to do it?'

'Not where all the towns.h.i.+p can see, you may be sure,' he answered, with one of his peculiar laughs. 'We'll keep this little affair dark. Do you know that bit of flat on the other side of Sugarloaf Hill?'

'Quite well,' I said. 'Who should know it better than I?'

'Very well, then; we'll have our trial spin there.' Then bending towards me he said very softly, 'Jim, my boy, it won't be my fault if we don't make a big haul over this race. There will be a lot of money about, and you've no objection, I suppose?'

'None whatever,' I answered. 'But do you think it's as certain as all that? Remember it's a pretty stiff course, and from what I heard this morning, the company your horse is likely to meet will be more than usually select.'

'I'm not the least afraid,' he answered 'My horse is a good one, and if he is well, will walk through them as if they were standing still.

Especially with you on his back.'

I took this compliment for what it was worth, knowing that it was only uttered for the sake of giving me a bit of a fillip.

'I shall see you, then, this evening?' I said.

'This evening. Can you come to dinner?'

'I'm afraid not,' I answered; and with a parting salutation we separated and rode on our different ways.

When I reached the corner I turned and looked back at him, asking myself what there was about Whispering Pete that made him so different to other men. That he _was_ different n.o.body could deny. Even the most commonplace things he did and said had something about them that made them different from the same things as done and said by other people. I must confess that, while I feared him a little, I could not help entertaining a sort of admiration for the man. Who and what was he? He had been in the towns.h.i.+p now, off and on, for two years, and during the whole of that time, with the exception of myself and a few other young men, he had made no friends at all. Indeed, he used to boast that he had no sympathy with men above a certain age, and it was equally certain that not one of the elderly inhabitants of the town, from my father and old McLeod downwards, had any sympathy or liking for him.

When I had watched him out of sight, I rode on to the McLeods'

selection, and, having tied up my horse, entered the house. Sheilah, I discovered, was not at home, having ridden out to their back boundary to see a woman who was lying ill at one of the huts. Old McLeod was in the stockyard, branding some heifers, and I strolled out to give him a hand.