He was in the saddle in a moment, but not so quickly as was the girl.

She led him through the gate.

Together they galloped across the Paddock Close and made for the hill,
Billy Bluff racing at their side.

The lads ran heavily behind.

The shed was belching smoke, and from the heather-thatch the flames were leaping in red flicker.

“Jolly blaze!” cried Silver as he galloped.

A sound of banging came from the heart of that cloud of smoke, and then the loud neigh of a frightened horse.

The young man’s face changed.

“Four Pound’s inside!” he cried.

He stormed up the hill, and for the first time in his life Banjo tasted steel.

Boy, too, had heard that muffled cry, and came shooting by the heavy-weight up the hill, Lollypop well extended.

“Keep clear!” cried Silver.  “Hold my horse!”

He was off in a trice, and wading through the bellying smoke.

The girl could see him dimly as he kicked at the door of the shed.

It burst open.

A vast shadow came hurtling through the fog.

Silver was sent hurling backward and sprawled on the hillside.

He was on his feet in a moment.

“That’s all right,” he panted, as he watched the colt career whinnying away, wreaths of smoke still clinging to his woolly coat.  “He’s not taken much harm.”

“I suppose he went in after we left,” mused Boy.  “And then the wind banged the door.”

“I don’t think the wind dropped that bar,” said the young man.  “And I doubt if it set the shelter alight.”

The shed was blazing merrily, the flames devouring the tarred wood with greed.

Jerry had seen a man leave the public path, cross the Paddock, and enter the shed half an hour before.

“What kind of a man?” asked Silver.

“Trampy, sir,” replied the lad.

“He got smokin’ in it out of the wind,” said Stanley, “and set it ablaze, and did a bolt.”

“After shutting the door behind him with the colt inside,” commented Silver.

He searched the grass on the outskirts of the shed for footmarks.  Something glimmering in the dusk caught his eye.  It was a wooden-handled sheath-knife.

Silver picked it up and showed it to the girl.

She said nothing.

“Billy Bluff!” called the young man.  He shoved the knife under the dog’s nose.  “Sik him out!” he called.  “Good dorg!”

Billy Bluff skirmished round and went off up the hill at score.

Silver mounted and followed.

The trail carried the dog up on to the Downs.

He pursued it at speed and unfaltering in the dusk.

Against the pale west, on the brow, the figure of a man soon came into view.  Billy Bluff raced up and greeted the pedestrian effusively.

Silver, pounding up behind, found himself face to face with the vicar.