Townsend, hands in pockets, took a turn up and down the hall. His horses were his pet hobbies. Besides the span of blacks which he was accustomed to drive about town and which, with the nobby brougham or carryall or dog-cart which they drew, were the admiration and boastful pride of Harniss, he owned a half dozen racers. At the Ostable County Fair and Cattle Show in October the Townsend entries usually carried off the majority of first prizes. They were entered, also, at the fair in New Bedford and sometimes as far away as Taunton. Between fairs there were numbers of by-races with other horse owners in neighboring towns. A good trotter was a joy to Foster Townsend and a sharply contested trotting match his keenest enjoyment. The Townsend trotters were as much talked about as the famous and long-drawn-out Townsend-Cook lawsuit. The suit was won, or seemed to be. The highest court in Massachusetts had recently decided it in Foster Townsend’s favor. Bangs Cook’s lawyers were reported to have entered motion of appeal and it was said that they intended carrying it to the Supreme Court at Washington, but few believed their appeal would be granted. Sam Baker was an old rival of his on the tracks. Baker was the hotel keeper and livery man at Bayport, ten miles away. He was not accounted rich, like Townsend, but he was well to do, a shrewd Yankee and a “sport.” The trotter Rattler was a recent acquisition of his and a fast one, so it was said. He had challenged Townsend’s mare Claribel to a mile trot on the “Circle,” the track which Townsend had built and presented to the town. It was a quarter mile round of hard clay road constructed on the salt meadows near the beach at South Harniss. A lonely spot with no houses near it, it was then. Now a summer hotel and an array of cottages stand on or near it. Foster Townsend used it as an exercise ground for his trotters, but any one else was accorded the same privilege. In the winter, when the snow was packed hard, it was the spot where the dashing young fellow in a smart cutter behind a smart horse took his best girl for a ride and the hope of an impromptu race with some other dashing young fellow similarly equipped. Varunas Gifford watched his employer pace up and down the hall, watched him adoringly but anxiously. After a moment he returned to repeat his question. “Better not be down to the Circle to-morrow mornin’, had I, Cap’n?” he suggested. Townsend stopped in his stride. “Yes,” he said, with decision. “I want you to be there.” “Eh? Why, good land! If that Seth Emmons is there spyin’ and keepin’ time on Claribel, why--” “Sshh! Wait! I want you to be there, but I don’t want the mare to be there. Is Hornet all right for a workout?” “Sartin sure he’s all right. But Hornet can’t do better’n 2:40 if he spreads himself, not on that Circle track anyhow. You ain’t cal’latin’ to haul out Claribel and put in Hornet, be you? There wouldn’t be no sense in that, Cap’n, not a mite. Why--”