Linton
answered. "He's quite a decent mover--I think you'll like him."
Cecil bit his lip, under cover of the darkness. He coveted a ride on
both Bobs and Monarch, and had given hints on the subject, but neither
had been taken. Now Jim, nearly three years his junior, was lent
Monarch without even having asked for him; while he was still, he
presumed, to ride the steady-going Brown Betty, whom he thoroughly
despised, in spite of the fact that she had once got rid of him. He
registered another notch in his general grudge against Billabong.
Mr. Linton was absolutely ignorant of what passed in his nephew's mind.
To give the city boy, with his uncertain seat and heavy hands, anything
but a steady horse, never occurred to him; he would have regarded it as
little short of inviting disaster to put him on Monarch, thoroughbred
and newly broken in as he was; and, of course, no one but Norah ever
rode Bobs.
"That's all right," he said, as Jim expressed his pleasure. "And what
about you, Wally? You're too long now for Mick, I think."
"Oh, anything you like, sir," said Wally, easily. "I haven't met any
bad 'uns on Billabong. Warder, or Brown Betty, or Nan--have you got them
all still?"
"They're all here," the squatter said. "Cecil generally rides Betty,
and I believe Burton's using old Warder just now.
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