Boy fed him herself by day and night, sleeping in his loose-box for the first few weeks, she and Billy Bluff, who promised to be good.  Monkey Brand, who had neither wife nor child of his own, and loved the girl with the doting passion of a nurse, wanted to share her watch, but his aid was abruptly refused.  So the little jockey slept in the loft instead, to be near at hand, and would bring the girl a cup of tea after her vigil.

Once, in his mysterious way, he beckoned Silver to follow him.  The young man pursued him up the ladder, treading, of course, on Maudie, who made the night hideous with her protests.

Up there in the darkness of the loft the little man stole with the motions of a conspirator to a far trap-door.  He opened it gingerly and listened.  From beneath came the sound of regular breathing.  Thrusting his lantern through the dark hole, he beckoned to Silver, who looked down.

In a corner of the loose-box, on a pile of horse rugs, slept Boy, her mass of hair untamed now and spreading abroad like a fan of gold.  Beside her on the moss-litter lay Billy Bluff, curled and dreaming of the chase.  And on a bed of bracken by the manger, his long legs tied up in knots, was the foal.

Silver peeped and instantly withdrew as one who has trespassed innocently.

“Pretty as a pictur, ain’t it?” whispered the little jockey.  “Only don’t go for to say I give her away.  That’d be the end of Monkey Brand, that would.”

He swung the lantern so that the light flashed on the face of the sleeping girl.

“That’ll do,” muttered the young man uneasily.  “You’ll wake her.”

“No, sir.  She’s fast,” the other answered.  “Fair wore out.  He wouldn’t take the bottle yesterday, and she was up with him all night.  I went down to her when it come light.  Only where it is she won’t allow nobody to do nothin’ for him only herself.”  He stole back to his lair in the straw at the far end of the loft.  “That’s the woman in her, sir,” he said in his sagacious way.  “Must have her baby all to herself.  Nobody don’t know nothin’ about it only mother.”

Four-Pound-the-Second after the first few perilous weeks throve amazingly.  He ceased to be a pretty creature, pathetic in his helplessness, and grew into a gawky hobbledehoy, rough and rude and turbulent.

Old Mat shook his head over the colt.

“Ugliest critter I ever set eyes on,” he said, partly in earnest and partly to tease his daughter.

“You’ll see,” said Boy firmly.

“If he’s a Berserk he’s worth saving, surely,” remarked Silver.  “Berserker—­Black Death.  Ought to be able to hop a bit.”

Everybody at Putnam’s knew that the colt was the son of that famous sire, but nobody, except Mat Woodburn and Monkey Brand, knew how they knew it.

“Oh! if he’s going to win the National—­as I think he is, de we—­he’s worth a little trouble,” replied the old man, winking at Monkey Brand.