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 through their paces, and he wanted Mrs. Ellison to tie different colors of yarn in his button-holes, each representing some article in the grocery line. He wasn't coming home without those supplies this trip.

"Yes, and I'll tie a gunny sack around your neck to make you think of that t'backer," Waco said.

Then Waco began to talk about the horses which were left over from the number Tom had brought up from the Nation after the neighbors had taken their animals. There were seven of them, five good, the other two fair. He thought it was a shame for the sheriff to take them and fool around three or four months trying to find their owners. Feed bills and fees and expenses of one kind and another would eat their heads off, and there would be nothing left for Tom in the end.

"I couldn't think of laying 'claim to any of them. The idea is preposterous," said Tom, with his high, frozen-faced dignity.

"The one you rode home," said Waco, "he's a dang good horse. There's only one horse on this place better'n that colt, if you'll take it from a simple-minded feller like me. You're entitled to that one as much as you're entitled to the teeth in your head."

"Not at all," said Tom, distantly.

"The sheriff said so, didn't he, Eudory?"

"That's what he said, Tom."

"He's wrong," said Tom, stiffly. "Somebody owns that horse: it's the sheriff's business to find who."

Waco looked at him intently for a moment, incredulity in his leathery old face.

"You're weak," said he.