"Miss Kitty, I'm a common man, and I may be mistook; but if I know anything--anything _at all_, let alone hosses--this young hoss is that identical young hoss that I see kick that shay to slivers over to Rochester. How do I know? Well, his color is the same, his markin's is the same, his shape and his action is the same. But that ain't all! That young hoss over to Rochester, he was a pictur' fer looks, same as this one; but yet when I looked in his countenance, I felt someways or another as if I couldn't say nothin' favorable about him. Don't know how 'tis, but that feelin' 'll come over me, 'bout a hoss or 'bout a bein', 'cordin' to; and when it comes, _I know it's right_. Now that same feelin' has come over me about this young hoss. And why?" John Tucker's voice rose. "Because he is the same hoss! But that ain't all!" as Mr. Boody was about to speak. "You might say one bust don't set a hoss down a kicker. That is so, but I say this ain't a case of one bust; I say this hoss has been kickin' within twenty-four hours." "Like to see you prove it!" said Boody. "Easy there, Hero! He knows you're slanderin' him. You can't fool this hoss. You'll get into trouble, John Tucker. I'll have the law of you if----" The horse had laid back his ears, and was settling back in a curious way. "Look out!" said John Tucker sharply. Boody, with a muttered curse and a savage look, laid his whip heavily over the horse's withers. The animal hesitated a moment, then sprang forward; another moment, and they had vanished round the corner in a cloud of dust. John Tucker turned to Kitty with an apologetic air. "I'm sorry, Miss Kitty!" he said. "I'm real sorry. I would of if I could----" "Oh, John Tucker, don't!" Kitty was scarlet, her eyes flashing, her hands clenched. "The _horrid_ man! Oh, I am so grateful to you, John! But how _did_ you know?" "Well, Miss Kitty, you see, 'twas easy enough, look at it one way. I'd seed the hoss before, seed him at his tricks, too. Yes'm: I'd seed him before, and--" a joke began to twinkle in John Tucker's eyes, and spread all over him till he became incandescent; you could have lighted a match at him; "and now I've seed him behind! haw! haw! You see me lift up his off hind foot? Well, why did I do that? Because when he shifted his footin' I see a spark of yeller. Come to look, and lo ye, his hoof was kind o' crushed in above the shoe, where he'd struck iron, and there was a flake of yellow paint on it big as my thumb nail." "And he knew that!" Kitty was pale now, not with fear but with anger. "The scoundrel!" "Well!" John Tucker pulled out his jack-knife and made a thoughtful incision in the door-jamb. "I dono as I'd just say that; I dono as he's a scoundrel; he's a trader! I've heard it said,--I dono as it's so, and I dono _as_ it is--but I've heard it said that there ain't no one, not even a minister of the Gospel, a holy man, but what he'll stretch the truth just a little grain in a hoss trade."