218 TALES OF THE TURF. 



friend on the street, but the latter immediately dodged 

 around a corner with the too painfully evident notice of 

 avoiding a meeting. Things were getting desperate. 

 "Does that cuss know what I know," soliloquized Mac, 

 "that he has the best green horse in Missouri ? It won't 

 do for me to hunt him up, nor go to his farm, for if he 

 don't now, he surely would then, and it would be 'Kitty 

 bar the door' to all my hopes. Confound a sharp farm- 

 er, especially the one who owns the horse I want — I've no 

 use for him. But then, the horse, how in thunder am I 

 to get him?" 



Meanwhile the cattle dealer would from time to time 

 ask, "Have you got him yet?" 



The answer grew more gloomy with each repetition, 

 "Not yet." 



Mac had a bright nephew with a horsey intuition, and 

 to him he confided : "Now, Fred, each noon on coming 



home from school, you go to 's stable, that's where 



Rhoades 'ties in,' careless like, you know, so no one will 

 suspicion your mission, and look at each horse there. If 

 you see a clean-cut, rakish-looking chestnut, nearly six- 

 teen hands, a slim tail, ragged hips, stifles standing out 

 wide and quarters let away down, no white marks, come 

 quick and tell me, see! me, but no one else." 



Daily, for the next two weeks, went Fred. There 

 were bays and browns, greys and blacks, and chestnuts 

 too, and horses of every hue known to the kind, but none 

 that filled the description of the best green horse in Mis- 

 souri. 



Now matters were bluer than blue blazes around Mac, 

 and visions of that blood-like chestnut he didn't own 

 haunted his sleep. 



As a dying chance he took a trip "hay buying" and 



