Page:Short Stories (1912).djvu/89

82 post outside the pub. If Hughes suspected and was watching, the hitched horse would keep him from starting till daylight. The moon would be up in half an hour. Paddy could get away then on the hidden horse, peg out fifty acres at Buchanan at dawn and be on his way back before the others got out to the ground."

Paddy roared. Higgins breathed freely, a weight seemed to be lifted from his mind. "Done it without getting drunk, sir, thank God!"

Paddy grabbed my hand. "Buchanan's yours, son, unless I fall down on the road and break me neck."

Paddy slipped away down the hill, and Higgins and I strolled up to Ahlers', where we found Isaac Brown doing his duty manfully. We helped him along a bit, I taking a drink and old Higgins a cigar, then we strolled out of the bar.

Down the road, now brightly lighted up by the moon, stood a boney old roan all saddled and hitched, and known to every one for a hundred miles around as Paddy's "Derby Winner." In the still of the night, we could hear the quick step of a distant horse and presently, the "splash—splash—splash!" of the water as it took the ford at the Palmer River.

Higgins chuckled and his wrinkled old face lit up with glee. "Taking the Limestone track," he whispered, "strikes off for Buchanan at Dog Leg Creek. It's an awful road, no one but Paddy could pick it up after leaving old Limestone. Hughes and his crowd have to go out by the Queen and cross the river way up at the Alexandra, miles further."

"When will Paddy get there?"

"Daylight."

"Well, we agreed to meet him at Mount Madden on his way back. I'm going to turn in."

"So long!" Old Higgins went off chuckling and muttering to himself. I, myself, was just going into