A Quest/on of Bits 15 



his intelligent ears as if listening to the comments that 

 were made. The mare, too, looked well, and went 

 kindly enough ; but this she was accustomed to do 

 until she came to a fence and upset herself, if not her 

 rider. Chippenham, in a double-seamed black coat, 

 sat down in his saddle in a business-like way ; Lawford, 

 in a tweed jacket, was no less calculated to inspire his 

 backers with confidence. Starting them was a very 

 simple matter. Oakley held up his handkerchief and 

 shouted ' Go ! ' as he flapped it into his pocket. Both 

 jumped off at the word, Crusader in front till they neared 

 the first fence, a hedge on the top of a bank, with a ditch 

 on the take-off side, and as he came to this Lawford pulled 

 back, leaving the mare in front. With a lead she might 

 have done it ; from what he knew of her he felt pretty 

 sure that, coming to it by herself, she would decline to 

 face it, and he recognised with pleasure those symptoms 

 of refusal w^hich he knew so well — the shortening stride, 

 and the head moving from left to right and right to 

 left. Instead of the easy swinging action there was a 

 slight pause and jerk each time her forelegs touched 

 the ground. Lawford was smiling sardonically, certain 

 of a refusal, when the expression of his face suddenly 

 changed. Clumsily as the mare approached her fence, 

 she thought better of it at the last moment and 

 scrambled over, pecking as she landed, for which, 

 however, Chippenham was prepared. 



Crusader was across without an effort, and went at 

 once to the front again to try the same trick next time, 

 a post and rails being the obstacle. As Lawford 

 slackened speed, however, Chippenham slackened too, 

 and they went over side by side. Lawford could not 

 understand it. With every advantage in the way of 



