Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/103

 to Dapples's oats, for he remembered with a mighty rage and fear the boy's threat to poison Sir Wilton. As he peered over the neck of the black horse, his eyes and those of Tony met.

"Hello, you monkey-faced sneak," cried Tony. "Spying on me, are you? Well, if I could get a crack at that speckled phiz of yours, I would make it more ugly than it is now."

"What was you doing to the little horse's oats?" asked Freckles, for the moment ignoring the insult. Then Tony remembered, and he was both afraid and terribly angry that he had been discovered.

"I wasn't doing nuthin'. I just came to see that he was fed."

"You put something on his oats. I know you did. I saw you." With these words Freckles slipped under the necks of the two ponies and peered into Dapples's temporary manger. The oats were covered with a green powder. He quickly