“That’s cool,” said Mark, as he looked at the man suspiciously. “Oh, here come Buck Denham and Dan. They have smelt that something’s wrong about the ponies. Here,” he continued, turning to the two fresh arrivals, “what are you two laughing at?”
“At ’im, sir,” whispered Dan, as the oddity moved away after a pony.
“Yes, he’s rather a rum ’un to look at, gen’lemen,” said Buck, in the same low tone. “I have seen him before. Sort of hang-about as has to do with him as sold you those ponies. I think he’s a bit touched in his head—dotty, you know.”
“That’s what I think too, gentlemen,” whispered Dan. “I have been to ’Stralia—Sydney, you know, where chaps go out shepherding and don’t see anything but the woolly ones sometimes for three months together, and I have heard as some of them quite goes off their heads, miserable and lonely like, for they have nobody to talk to but the sheep.”
“But this isn’t Australia,” said Mark.
“And this fellow hasn’t been with sheep,” added Dean, “but ponies.”
“No, sir,” said Dan; “but horses do just as well.”
“That they wouldn’t,” cried Mark. “A man who had horses with him could make companions of them.”
“Yes,” cried Dean, “and have a good long ride every now and then.”
“To be sure,” added Mark. “A man who had a horse or a dog for companion could not go off his head. Look at Robinson Crusoe; he was jolly enough with a poll parrot.”