"Last night," said Tuck.

"You say she wore a white collar and cuffs and a black felt hat?"

"No; I did n't see what sort of a hat she had. She did n't have any hat on. I said she had on a dark dress with white around the wrists and a wide white collar turned down."

"I pa.s.sed that girl on the road yesterday. She was going out that way.

She rode a sorrel with one stocking behind and a star."

"Why!" exclaimed Reedy, "that must 'a' been the horse I seen out on the gra.s.s. He was a short-coupled sorrel with a stocking on his near hind leg, and he had a star. I thought to myself that he looked corn-fed."

"That's hers. She wore a man's hat. It was turned up on one side with a big breastpin. I noticed it wasn't any eight-dollar hat; she had to fix it that way to stiffen the brim in front. It was a black hat."

"She must be intending to make a stay to turn him loose like that,"

remarked Bill Whallen.

Further discussion yielding nothing but these same facts, the talk came round to horse-lore again.

A while later, Whallen, having called for his mail and received none, stepped out of the post-office and ran his eye along the row of horses at the hitching-rack. At the end of the row was an extremely starved-looking animal; and he was being stoutly defended by his owner, Al Todd, against the aspersions of the drug clerk.

"All that horse needs," said Al Todd, "is a little something to eat.

What do you expect of a horse that is just out of the poor-house?

There's a real horse. Look at his framework. Look at them legs. Look at how he's ribbed up."

Whallen examined the horse's bones and teeth; then he stepped back and took a general all-over view.

"What do you think of it?" asked the drug clerk.

"Is he for sale?" inquired Whallen, before answering.

"No, he ain't for sale," answered Todd. "This fellow thinks he ain't a nice horse."

"Well," said Whallen, "a man can easy enough put meat on a horse. But he can't put the bones in him."

"Nor the git-ap," added Todd.

"Does he know anything?" asked Whallen.

"That's just what he does," answered Todd. "I threw a steer with him yesterday and he held it while I made a tie. A steer can't get any slack rope on him. He surprised me."

"Who had him?" inquired Whallen.

"Don't know. I bought him up at the county-seat. He was one of them uncalled-for kind--like that suit of clothes they sold me up in Chicago. And Steve Brown says to me, 'I should say they were uncalled for, entirely uncalled for.' They can't fool me on horses, though."

"Say!" said Whallen; "Ed Curtis got in from Belleview yesterday. When he was coming along the road he met a girl on a sorrel. And last night Tuck Reedy--"

And Whallen went on to tell about the strange case of Steve Brown and the woman.

"Was he sure that was Steve Brown?" the drug clerk questioned.

"Reedy could n't say it was Brown for certain; he did n't get a right good view of his face. He said it looked like him. But he could see the woman plain."

"Why, sure that was Brown," said the owner of the horse. "I saw Pete Harding when I was up at the county-seat; and he came along with me to see them auction off the bunch of strays. This horse was one of them; that's why he's so thin. I asked Harding who had his job now, and he told me n.o.body had it because Brown was running the sheep himself."

"How did the woman come to be out there?"

"There was n't any woman out there when Pete left. I know Pete. Brown came out there to see how things were doing, and while he was there Pete remarked that sheep-life was getting pretty monotonous. So Brown told him to go away a while and give his mind a change. Pete did n't say anything about a woman."

"I guess Mr. Reedy did n't see very plain," remarked the drug clerk.

"See plain!" said Todd in disgust. "You don't listen plain."

"Then Harding did n't quit on his own hook?" queried Whallen.

"He did n't quit at all. He's going back in a few days if he gets through being drunk. He told me he had to get through before the lambs was born. He did n't know about any woman."

"Humph! Brown went off by himself and did herding like that before.

He acts queer lately. He don't say much."

"That's what Pete said. Me and him trailed round Belleview all morning, and I got him to go along and bid in this horse for me. I saw he was a good horse, but I did n't know he was rope-wise. Look at his backbone. Look at how he's coupled up."

The drug clerk, having affected horse wisdom and miscarried, now stepped forward and began feeling the distance between the horse's rump and floating ribs, a move evidently intended to show his knowledge of this last technical term.

"What's all that for!" inquired Todd, with a touch of surprise. "Ain't them bones plain enough to see? I guess you think he is one of them nice fat horses that you have got to feel."

"That's right, Al," remarked Whallen. "Buy a horse like that and you see what you 're getting. What's the use feeling when the package is open?"

The drug clerk, thus suddenly put out of countenance by the very bones he had been flouting, stepped back and held his peace; and presently, under cover of Whallen's going, he took his own departure.

Al, now that he had vanquished his opponent and made him seek the intrenchment of his counter, cast his eye about and searched the length of Main Street, one side and then the other. He expected to get sight of some one of the crew that had brought the cattle into the loading-pens; but they had totally disappeared. After looking into a few likely places, and finding that he had guessed wrong, he paused on a street corner to give the matter deeper thought.

"Come on, Al," said Toot Wilson, hastening past.

"Where at?"

"Up to the saddle-maker's. They 're in there. He is making a fine one. Did you see it?"

"No."

"It's for young Chase. It's great work."

In John Diefenbach's workroom was a numerous company of saddle admirers, sitting and lounging about in the seductive odor of new-mown leather. The saddler, happily busied among his patterns and punches and embossing-tools, turned at times and peered over the rims of his spectacles in evident satisfaction. The heavy stock saddle, its quant.i.ties of leather all richly beflowered, was mounted on a trestle beside him. It was so near completion that the long saddle-strings now hung down in pairs all round, and these thongs, being of lighter-colored leather, and sprouting out of the hearts of embossed primroses, looked quite as if they were the natural new growth of that spring--in fact the whole flourishing affair might have been expected to put on a few more layers of leather out of its own powers of luxuriance. But there was nothing superfluous about it.

"What do you think of it, Al?" asked one of the company.

Todd looked it over, the broad hair girths fore and aft, the big cinch rings and strong stirrup straps. The stirrups were missing. His eye sought the hooks and pegs over the workbench.

"Do _them_ things go on it?" he asked, pointing an accusing finger.

Hanging on the wall was a pair of Mexican _tapaderas_--deep hooded stirrups with a great superfluity of leather extending below as if they were wings for the feet.