"That's the right sort you dressed over awhile ago," continued the smoker, leaning out of window, and showing a tall, active frame, surmounted by a swarthy face, with the eager expression of a hawk. The ostler set his bucket down, and winked. "You're a judge," said he, "_you_ are, and so you ought. There's a many passes through your hands, Master Cooper, but I never see you with such a nag as this here. He's a cut above _you_, everyway--he is." "That's a good one!" answered the dark man, with a boastful laugh. "Why, Ike, you old fool! I tell you I owned that very horse myself, and I _gave_ him--gave him away as a present to a friend of mine." "But how came Galloping Jack to part with him?" asked the ostler, much interested. "I knowed the horse, bless ye, as well as the horse knowed me, when he came into the yard not two hours back; but he's in the hands of a real gentleman now, and as pretty a rider as ever drew a rein through his fingers. There was something about his seat as put me in mind of Jack, too, and something in the way he carried his hands; but I can't call to mind seeing Jack without a mask on. Speak up, Master Cooper: it couldn't be the man himself, could it now? I never heerd as he'd swung for sure." "Who knows!" answered the other, with a harsh laugh. "_You_ water your horses, and mind your own business, Ike, and I'll tell the drawer to give you a pot of ale when you come into the house." Now John Garnet, sitting after dinner at an open window above the stable-yard, overheard the foregoing conversation, and resolved straightway to take advantage of his own likeness to the missing hero, whose horse he had so strangely appropriated. Katerfelto seemed well known in these parts as the property of Galloping Jack, and, indeed, an animal of such remarkable beauty was sure to be recognised by anyone concerned with horses who had ever seen it before. If the rider's figure, too, resembled the highwayman, who had been in the habit of concealing his features in a mask, it was quite possible that he, John Garnet, riding the best horse in England, might, so long as it suited his purpose, be mistaken for the enterprising person known on the Great Western Road as Galloping Jack.