The young man went alone.

At Arunvale the station-master beckoned him into the office.

“It’s right, sir,” he said keenly.  “Chukkers and Ikey come down this morning.  Two-thirty’s the time accordin’ to my information.  I’ve got a trap waitin’ for you outside.  Ginger Harris’ll drive you.  He was a lad at Putnam’s one time o’ day.  Now he keeps the Three Cocks by the bridge.  He don’t like Jaggers any better than me.  Only lay low and mind your eye.  Arunvale’s stiff with ’em.”

Silver wished to know more, but he was not to be gratified.

The station-clerk, as full of mystery as Monkey Brand himself, bustled him out of the office, finger to his lips.

“Trap’s outside, sir,” he whispered.  “I won’t come with you.  There’s eyes everywhere—­tongues, too.”

Outside was a gig, and in it sat a red-faced fly-man in a bottle-green coat and old top-hat, who made room for the young man at his side.

They drove over the bridge through the town, up the steep, into the vast rolling Park with the clumps of brown beech-woods that ran down to the river and the herds of red deer dotting the deep valleys.

As they passed through the north gate of the Park, Ginger slowed down to a walk.

“If I’ve time it right,” he said, “she should be doin’ her gallop while we walks along the ridge.  Don’t show too keen, sir.”

A long sallow man sitting on the roadside at the edge of the wood eyed them.

The driver nudged his companion.

“One of ’em,” he said.  “Ikey’s Own.  Know by the cut of ’em.”

“Many about?” asked Silver.

“Been all over us since Christmas,” answered the other.  “Cargo of ’em landed at Liverpool Bank ’oliday.  All sorts.  All chose for the job.  Stop at nothin’.  If they suspicion you they move you on or put you out.  They watch her same as if she was the Queen of England.  And I don’t wonder.  Nobody knows the millions she’ll carry.”

When they were well past the man at the roadside he whistled.  There came an answering call from the wood in front.

As they emerged on to the open Downs, Ginger pulled up short.

“They’ve done us, sir,” he said shortly.

A hundred yards ahead of them a sheeted chestnut was coming toward them on the grass alongside the road.

Jim Silver had only seen the Waler mare once—­on the occasion of her famous victory and defeat at Aintree the previous year; but once seen Mocassin was never forgotten.

She came along at that swift, pattering walk of hers, her nose in the air, and ears twitching.

“Always the same,” whispered Ginger.  “In a terrible hurry to get there.”

He had the true Putnam feeling about Jaggers; but that passion of devotion for the mare, which had inspired the English-speaking race for the past year, had not left him untouched.  Jim Silver felt the little prosaic man thrilling at his side, and thrilled in his turn.  He felt as he had felt when as a Lower Boy at Eton the Captain of the Boats had spoken to him—­a swimming in the eyes, a brimming of the heart, a gulping at the throat.