On the following day, while everybody was waiting for the mail to be distributed, Tuck was loitering up and down past the various groups on Thornton's principal thoroughfare. Coming finally to where the subject of horse was being discussed, he joined himself to this multitude of counselors; and finding Hank Bullen among those present, he related his experience of the night before. While the two speculated and conjectured, others became included in the conversation, a process which requires a story to be several times repeated. "Did you say this was yesterday?" asked Ed Curtis, who had just caught the drift of it. "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 passed 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 grass. 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.