262 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



Felix, " it is your business to know, and I paid you 

 as my book-keeper to know, and if you don't know 

 you must jest return with me and find out, that's all 

 — so come, let us be movin'." Well, Sassy larfed 

 right out in his face. " Why, you cussed fool," sais 

 he, " don't you know I can't be taken out o' this 

 colony state but only for crime ? What a rael soft- 

 horn you must be to have done so much business and 

 not know that ! " "I guess I got a warrant that'll take 

 you out, tho'," sais Felix; "read that," — a handin' 

 the paper to him. " IsTow I shall swear to that agin, 

 and send it to governor, and down will come the 

 marchin' order in quick stick. I'm soft, I know, but 

 I ain't sticky, for all that ; I generally come off clear, 

 without leavin' no part behind." The moment Sassy 

 saw the warrant his face fell, and the cold perspira- 

 tion rose out like rain-drops, and his colour went and 

 came, and his knees shook like anythin'. "Hoss- 

 stealin' ! " sais he aloud to himself — " hoss-stealin' ! 

 ■ — heavens and airth, what perjury ! Why, Felix,"' 

 sais he, " you know devilish well I never stole your 

 hoss, man ; how could you go and swear to such an 

 infarnal lie as that?" ''Well, I'm nothin' but a 

 ' cussed fool ' and a rael ' soft-horn ' you know,'* 

 sais Felix, "as you said just now; and if I had 

 gone and sworn to the debt, why you'd a-kept the 

 money, gone to jail, and swore out, and I'd a-had my 

 trouble for my pains. So you see I swore you stole 

 my hoss, for that's a crime, though absquotolatin'. 



