"Not in the least, only wait till I git this wheel on. Ye may go and see the hoss in my presence, but ye can't take the hoss, without I'm satisfied you've the best right to him."
"That's all I ask, Mr. Peakslow; I want only what belongs to me. If you are a loser, you must look for redress to the man who sold you my property; and he must go back on the next man."
"How's that?" put in Zeph, grinning over his grease-pot. "Pa thinks he's got a good deal better hoss than he put away; and you ain't agoin' to crowd him out of a good bargain, I bet!"
"Hold your tongue!" growled Peakslow. "I can fight my own battles, without any of your tongue. I put away a pooty good hoss, and I gin fifteen dollars to boot."
"What man did you trade with?" Jack inquired.
"A truckman in Chicago. He liked my hoss, and I liked hisn, and we swapped. He wanted twenty dollars, I offered him ten, and we split the difference. He won't want to give me back my hoss and my money, now; and ye can't blame him. And the next man won't want to satisfy him. Grant the hoss is stole, for the sake of the argyment," said Peakslow. "I maintain that when an animal that's been stole, and sold, and traded, finally gits into an honest man's hands, it's right he should stay there."
"Even if it's your horse, and the honest man who gets him is your neighbor?" queried Jack.
"I do'no'—wal—yes!" said Peakslow. "It's a hard case, but no harder one way than t' other."
"But the law looks at it in only one way," replied Jack. "And with reason. Men must be careful how they deal with thieves or get hold of stolen property. How happens it that you, Mr. Peakslow, didn't know that such a horse had been stolen? Some of your neighbors knew it very well."
"Some of my neighbors I don't have nothin' to say to," answered Peakslow, gruffly. "If you mean the Bettersons, they're a pack of thieves and robbers themselves, and I don't swap words with none of 'em, without 't is to tell 'em my mind; that I do, when I have a chance."