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"Price shorter nor ever I remember it since Cloister's year. It's a cert. for the Three J's. What about my little ride-a-cock-horse, Mr. Buckland?" The bookmaker referred to his card. "Four-Pound-the-Second," he said. "Give you forties." "Forties!" guffawed Old Mat. "A young giraffe like him, dropped this spring in the Sarah desert under a cocoanut shy.
Wylie with that on the sheet that had come by special delivery. The loop of the J's, the shape of the K's, the formation of the capital H in both cases were alike. So too was the general lack of character common to both, the peculiar hesitating drag of the letters. Beyond question the same person had written both. Certainly Mrs. Wylie was not warning the sheriff against herself. Then against whom?
I ain't ever seen him act so ugly before." Then to the dog, "Quit that, Tim, or I'll bust your jaw." Garland mounted the slope. The sound of the river behind him was drowned by the roar of the Lizzie J's mill. Its rampart-like wall towered above him, cut by the orange squares of windows, the thunder of its stamps, a giant's feet crushing out the gold, pounding tremendous on the nocturnal solitude.
Stanley finally deigned to descend from his heights to crush the youth. "They got a quarter of a million on God Almighty's Mustang, the Three J's 'ave. Think they'd trust anyone up only one of their fat selves? Now then!" In the middle of the storm Monkey Brand, who had been waiting for the girl in the door, looked in. He saw the writing on the board and crossed the barn.
A few further inquiries, made by Mat, put the thing beyond question. Joses was watcher for Jaggers, who trained for Ikey Aaronsohnn, for whom Chukkers rode. In England, Australia, and the Americas, the three were always spoken of together as the Three J's Jaggers, the Jockey, and the Jew. Wherever horses raced their fame was great, and amongst the English at least it was evil and ominous.
"We pronounce it almost the same." "That's because you haven't got the courage of your convictions. You fling the 'i's' and 'j's' about, and then pretend they're not there." "Why, don't you see that they're only 'y's'?" I protested, and really it does appear strange that to foreign eyes they can look, when side by side, like separate letters. But the Chaperon stopped us.
Joses, slobbering at the mouth, was shouting in the trainer's ear. Both men plunged into the vortex. "Easy all!" came Jaggers's priest-like voice. "Give him a chance, boys. We aren't beat yet." "Win, tie, or wrangle!" muttered Old Mat. "That's the Three J's all right." The mounted police were shepherding Chukkers off the course into the Paddock. There was murder in his face.
"American's bankin' on her to the last dollar, let alone the Three J's.... There's more in it than money, too. There's pride and sentiment, the old animosities." He added after a pause "Half a million's a lot of money though. There'll be pickings, too for those that deserve them." Monkey moved restlessly. "I daresay," he said irritably. "Not as it matters to me. Not as nothin' matters to me now.
Then away into the darkness round Chinese Crossing, under the eaves of the spreading plant of the Northern Light, up a hill and down on the other side through a tunnel of trees to the Stanislaus Ferry. As he passed into their hollow he could hear the thunder of the Lizzie J's stamps across the river, beating gigantic on the silence, shaking the night.
It was growing dusk at the time, and the distance was considerable, as Monkey admitted, but the little jockey maintained with restraint and emphasis that "he'd know that waddle anywheres." Joses did not go undefended. The fact of his value to the Three J's, if ever in doubt, was proved beyond question by the fact that they paid a good lawyer to keep him out of gaol.
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