as full of hearty agreement.

"So do I. Yes, they're small, if they're all like that one. Too small.
Much too small."

He looked narrowly at Townsend from the corner of his eyes to make sure
that the hotel proprietor suspected nothing.

"This deaf-mute sells some, now and then?"

"Yep. He comes down once in a while and sells a hoss to the first gent
he meets--and then walks back to the garden. Always geldings that he
sells, I understand. Stand up under work pretty well, those little
hosses. Harry Macklin has got one. Harry lives at Fort Andrew. There's a
funny yarn out about how Harry--"

"What price does the mute ask?"

"Thinking of getting one of 'em?"

"Me? Of course not! What do I want with a runt of a horse like that? But
I was wondering what they pay around here for little horses."

"I dunno."

"What's that story you were going to tell me about Harry Macklin?"

"You see, it was this way--"

And he poured forth the stale anecdote while they strolled back to the
hotel. Connor smiled and nodded at appropriate places, but his absent
eyes were seeing, once more, the low-running form of the little gray
gelding coming away from the rest of the pack.

_CHAPTER SIX_

When he arrived at the hotel Ben Connor found the following telegram
awaiting him:

Lady Fay in with ninety-eight Trickster did mile and furlong in
one fifty-four with one hundred twenty Caledonian stale mile in
one thirty-nine Billy Jones looks good track fast.

HARRY SLOCUM.

That message blotted all other thoughts from the mind of Connor. From
his traveling bag he brought out a portfolio full of wrinkled papers and
pamphlets crowded with lists of names and figures; there followed a time
of close work. Page after page of calculations scribbled with a soft
pencil and in a large, sprawling hand, were torn from a pad, fluttered
through the air and lay where they fell. When the hour was ended he
pushed away the pamphlets of "dope" and picked up his notes. After that
he sat in deep thought and drove puff after puff of cigarette-smoke at
the ceiling.

As his brown study progressed, he began crumpling the slips in his moist
fingers until only two remained. These he balanced on his finger-tips as
though their weight might speak to his finely attuned nerves. At length,
one hand closed slowly over the paper it held and crushed it to a ball.
He flicked this away with his thumb and rose. On the remaining paper was
writt