"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 nobody 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.