tention of
sharing the coolness with him. Old Man Curry had less than a bowing
acquaintance with Pitkin, wished to know him no better, and had
disliked him from the moment he had first seen him.

"Hot, ain't it?" asked the newcomer by way of making a little talk.
"What you reading, Curry?"

Old Man Curry looked up from the thirteenth chapter of Proverbs,
ceased chewing his straw, and regarded Pitkin with a grave and
appraising interest which held something of disapproval, something of
insult. Pitkin's eyes shifted.

"It says here," remarked the aged horseman, "'A righteous man hateth
lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame.'"

"Fair enough," said Pitkin, "and serves him right. He ought to come
to shame. Pretty hot for this time of year."

"It'll be hotter for some folks by and by."

Pitkin laughed noisily.

"Where do you get that stuff?" he demanded.

"I hope I ain't agoin' to git it," said Old Man Curry. "I aim to live
so's to miss it." He lapsed into silence, and the straw began to
twitch to the slow grinding motion of his lower jaw. A very stupid
man might have seen at a glance that Curry did not wish to be
disturbed, but for some reason or other Pitkin felt the need of
conversation.

"I've been thinking," said he, "that my racing colours are too
plain--yellow jacket, white sleeves, white cap. There's so many
yellows and whites that people get 'em mixed up. How would it do if I
put a design on the back of the jacket--something that would tell
people at a glance that the horse was from the Pitkin stable?"

Old Man Curry closed his book.

"You want 'em to know which is your hosses?" he asked. "Is that the
idee?"

"Sure," answered Pitkin. "I was trying to think up a design of some
kind. Lucky Baldwin, used to have a Maltese cross. How would it do if
I had a rooster or a rising sun or a crescent sewed on to the back of
the jacket?"

Old Man Curry pretended to give serious thought to the problem.

"Roosters an' risin' suns don't mean anything," said he judicially.
"An emblem ought to _mean_ something to the public--it ought to stand
for something."

"Yes," said Pitkin, "but what can I get that will sort of identify me
and my horses?"

"Well," said the old man, "mebbe I can suggest a dee-sign that'll
fill the bill." He picked up a bit of shingle and drew a pencil from
his pocket. "How would this do? Two straight marks this way, Pitkin,
an' two straight marks _that_ way--and nobody'd