“Oh, be quiet! If he does 2:45 it will suit me just as well, provided that is the best you can make him do. You say it’s dark down there at six o’clock?” “Dark enough, even if it’s a fine mornin’, this time of year. A mornin’ like to-day’s--yes, and the way it looks as if to-morrow’s would be--it’s so dark you can’t much more’n see to keep in the road.” “All right. The darker the better. If it’s dark to-morrow morning you hitch Hornet in the gig and go down there and send him a mile as fast as he can travel. He is the same build and size as Claribel, about, and the same color.” “Eh?... Gosh!” Varunas’ leathery face split with a broad grin. “Yus--yus,” he observed, “I see what you’re up to, Cap’n Foster. You figger that Sam Emmons’ll see me sendin’ Hornet around the Circle and he’ll take it for granted--Eh! But no, I’m afraid ’twon’t be dark enough for that. Hornet _is_ the same size and color as Claribel but he ain’t marked the same. Claribel’s got that white splash between her eyes and that white stockin’ on her left hind laig. Hornet he ain’t got no white on him nowheres. If ’twas the middle of the night Sam might be fooled, but--” “Sshh! You’ve been whitewashing the henhouses this week, haven’t you? And as the job isn’t finished, I imagine you’ve got some of the whitewash left. If you have, and _if_ you’ve got any gumption at all, I should think you could splash a horse white wherever he needed to be white and do it well enough to fool anybody on a dark morning, particularly if he wasn’t on the lookout for a trick. You could do that on a pinch, couldn’t you?” Mr. Gifford’s grin, which had disappeared, came back again, broader than ever. “I shouldn’t be surprised to death if I could,” he chuckled. “I see--yus, yus, I see! Sam he’ll see Hornet all whitewashed up like a cellar door and he won’t be suspicionin’ nothin’ but Claribel, and so when Hornet can’t do no better than 2:40 or 2:45 he’ll naturally--Hi! that’s cute, that is! Yes, yes, I see now.” “Well, I’m glad you do. Go ahead and do your whitewashing. Whitewash isn’t like paint, it comes off easy.” From behind the closed door of the library a sharp voice called: “Cap’n Townsend! Cap’n Townsend! Supper’s ready!” Varunas started. “I must be goin’,” he whispered. “Don’t tell her about it, Cap’n Foster, will ye. She’ll pester me to death to find out what’s up and if I don’t tell her, she-- But say!” he added admiringly, “that is about as slick a trick as ever I heard of, that whitewashin’ is. How did you ever come to think that up all by yourself?” Foster Townsend, his hand on the knob of the dining room door, grunted. “I didn’t think it up all by myself,” he said, curtly. “There’s nothing new about it. It’s an old trick, as old as horse racing. I remembered it, that’s all, and I guess it is good enough to fool any of Sam Baker’s gang. You can tell me to-morrow how it worked.”