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"I believe so," replied the girl.
"Is that sure?" asked the young man.
"Father seems to think so," replied Boy evasively. "Monkey Brand met the gypsy afterward, who pitched him a tale."
"Who's he belong to?" asked the young man.
"Me, of course," laughed Boy.
"I'll go shares with you!" said Silver. "Halve expenses and winnings.
There's an offer now!"
"Right," she cried.
They shook hands with laughter, and led their horses across the Close.
The girl edged off to the right.
"We'll look in on old Ragam.u.f.fin," she said. "I always used to give him an apple on my birthday."
As they put the wood between them and the Bottom, a man who had been lying in the shelter out of the wind came to the door and called to the colt.
"Whoa, little man!" he said. "Whoa then!"
CHAPTER XXVII
The Fire in the Dusk
It was Jerry who gave the alarm ten minutes later. He had been busy at his garden in the Sloperies when he saw the smoke rise from the shelter on the hill, and rushed into the yard to say the shed was ablaze.
Boy and Silver, after their leisurely walk home, had just entered the yard and surrendered their horses to two of the lads. The girl was releasing Billy Bluff from his chain, to Maudie's open annoyance, when Jerry panted in with his news.
Silver ran to the gate.
"By Jove, so it is!" he cried.
He was in the saddle in a moment, but not so quickly as was the girl.
She led him through the gate.
Together they galloped across the Paddock Close and made for the hill, Billy Bluff racing at their side.
The lads ran heavily behind.
The shed was belching smoke, and from the heather-thatch the flames were leaping in red flicker.
"Jolly blaze!" cried Silver as he galloped.
A sound of banging came from the heart of that cloud of smoke, and then the loud neigh of a frightened horse.
The young man's face changed.
"Four Pound's inside!" he cried.
He stormed up the hill, and for the first time in his life Banjo tasted steel.
Boy, too, had heard that m.u.f.fled cry, and came shooting by the heavy-weight up the hill, Lollypop well extended.
"Keep clear!" cried Silver. "Hold my horse!"
He was off in a trice, and wading through the bellying smoke.
The girl could see him dimly as he kicked at the door of the shed.
It burst open.
A vast shadow came hurtling through the fog.
Silver was sent hurling backward and sprawled on the hillside.
He was on his feet in a moment.
"That's all right," he panted, as he watched the colt career whinnying away, wreaths of smoke still clinging to his woolly coat. "He's not taken much harm."
"I suppose he went in after we left," mused Boy. "And then the wind banged the door."
"I don't think the wind dropped that bar," said the young man. "And I doubt if it set the shelter alight."
The shed was blazing merrily, the flames devouring the tarred wood with greed.
Jerry had seen a man leave the public path, cross the Paddock, and enter the shed half an hour before.
"What kind of a man?" asked Silver.
"Trampy, sir," replied the lad.
"He got smokin' in it out of the wind," said Stanley, "and set it ablaze, and did a bolt."
"After shutting the door behind him with the colt inside," commented Silver.
He searched the gra.s.s on the outskirts of the shed for footmarks.
Something glimmering in the dusk caught his eye. It was a wooden-handled sheath-knife.
Silver picked it up and showed it to the girl.
