ip.

"Well, why don't you tell me, then?"

"Well, how can I?" Penrod demanded. "You keep talkin' every minute."

"I'm not talkin' NOW, am I?" Sam protested. "You can tell me NOW, can't
you? I'm not talk--"

"You are, too!" Penrod shouted. "You talk all the time! You--"

He was interrupted by Whitey's peculiar cough. Both boys jumped and
forgot their argument.

"He means he wants some more to eat, I bet," said Sam.

"Well, if he does, he's got to wait," Penrod declared. "We got to get
the most important thing of all fixed up first."

"What's that, Penrod?"

"The reward," said Penrod mildly. "That's what I was tryin' to tell you
about, Sam, if you'd ever give me half a chance."

"Well, I DID give you a chance. I kept TELLIN' you to tell me, but--"

"You never! You kept sayin'--"

They renewed this discussion, protracting it indefinitely; but as
each persisted in clinging to his own interpretation of the facts, the
question still remains unsettled. It was abandoned, or rather, it merged
into another during the later stages of the debate, this other being
concerned with which of the debaters had the least "sense." Each made
the plain statement that if he were more deficient than his opponent in
that regard, self-destruction would be his only refuge. Each declared
that he would "rather die than be talked to death"; and then, as the
two approached a point bluntly recriminative, Whitey coughed again,
whereupon they were miraculously silent, and went into the passageway in
a perfectly amiable manner.

"I got to have a good look at him, for once," Penrod said, as he stared
frowningly at Whitey. "We got to fix up about that reward."

"I want to take a good ole look at him myself," Sam said.

After supplying Whitey with another bucket of water, they returned to
the carriage-house and seated themselves thoughtfully. In truth, they
were something a shade more than thoughtful; the adventure to which they
had committed themselves was beginning to be a little overpowering. If
Whitey had been a dog, a goat, a fowl, or even a stray calf, they would
have felt equal to him; but now that the earlier glow of their wild
daring had disappeared, vague apprehensions stirred. Their "good look"
at Whitey had not reassured them--he seemed large, Gothic and unusual.

Whisperings within them began to urge that for boys to undertake an
enterprise connected with so huge an animal as an actual horse was
perilous. Beneath the surface o