Moonlighter's jockey saw he was beaten for the moment at least and took a pull. As Mocassin's swift bobbing head swung round the corner on to the straight, she was alone save for her stable-companion, and his work was done. "He's seen her through," muttered Old Mat. "Now he can go home to bed." Indeed, as Jackaroo sprawled down the straight, still hanging to the quarters of the mare, he looked like a towel-rail on which wet clothes had been hung, and Rushton had ceased to ride. The mare, fresh as the old horse was failing, came along in front of the Grand Stand, clipping the grass with that swift, rhythmical stroke of hers and little fretful snatch at the reins, neat and swift and strong as a startled deer. Chukkers sat still and absorbed as a cat waiting over a mouse's hole. All eyes were on him. Nothing else was seen. His race was won. Last year's defeat had been avenged. America had made good. A roar as of an avalanche boomed and billowed about him. The thousands on the stands yelled, stamped and cooeyed. "Hail, Columbia!" bellowed the triumphant Boys. "Stand down, England!" "What price the Yankee-doodlers?" "Who gives the Mustang best?" In that tumult of sound, individual voices were lost. The yells of the bookies were indistinguishable. Men saw things through a mist, and more than one woman fainted. Then through the terrific boom came the discordant blare of a megaphone, faint at first but swiftly overbearing the noise of the tempest. "Watch it, ye ----!" it screamed. "He's catchin' ye!" It was the voice of Jaggers. The thousands heard and hushed. They recognised the voice and the note of terror in it. Chukkers heard, too, turned, and had a glimpse of a green jacket surging up wide on his right. There was the sound of a soughing wind as the crowd drew its breath. What was this great owl-like enemy swooping up out of nowhere? Chukkers, his head on his shoulders, took the situation in. What he saw he didn't like. The mare was going strong beneath him, but the brown horse on his quarter was only beginning: so much his expert eye told him at a glance. Four-Pound-the-Second was coming along like a cataract, easy as an eagle in flight; his great buffeting shoulders were sprayed with foam, his gaping nostrils drinking in oceans of air and spouting them out again with the rhythmical regularity of a steam-pump; and his little jockey sat on his back still as a mouse--a pale face, a gleam of fair hair, and two little brown fists that gave and took with each stride of the galloping horse. Chukkers was not the only one who seized the situation. The bookies absorbed it in a flash--the outsider's form, the jockey's colours, the significance of both. It was Old Mat's horse--Old Mat who had sprung surprises on the ring so often in his time. Rumour had always said that the horse was by Berserker. Then they had disbelieved. Now--well, he looked it. Suddenly the ring went mad.