Perhaps not more than twenty minutes had elapsed from the time Jean started across the fields, to the moment of her return to the old horse, but in those twenty minutes Mr. Stuyvesant had secured aid from Mr. Fletcher’s place, and when Jean came hurrying upon the scene, her sobs still rendering breathing difficult, and her troubled little face bathed in tears, she found three men standing near Baltie.
“Oh, Baltie, Baltie, Baltie, I’m so glad! So glad! So glad!” sobbed the overwrought little girl, as she flew to the old horse’s head.
Mr. Stuyvesant and the men stared at her in astonishment.
“Why little girl,” cried the former. “Where in this world have you sprung from? And what is the matter? Is this your horse?”
“Oh, no—no; he isn’t mine. It’s old Baltie; don’t you know him? I went to tell Jabe Raulsbury about him and he—he—” and Jean paused embarrassed.
“Yes? Well? Is this his horse? Is he coming to get him? Did you find him?”
“Yes, sir, I found him,” answered Jean, trembling from excitement and her exertions.
“And is he coming right down?” persisted Mr. Stuyvesant, looking keenly, although not unkindly, at the child.
“He—he—, oh, please don’t make me tell tales on anybody—it’s so mean—but he—”
“You might as well tell it right out an’ done with it, little gal,” broke in one of the men. “It ain’t no state secret; everybody knows that that old skinflint has been abusing this horse shameful, for months past, an’ I’ll bet my month’s wages he said he wouldn’t come down, an’ he hoped the horse ’d die in the ditch. Come now, out with it—didn’t he?”