“Come, come! Throw it overboard!”
“Well, I was cal’latin’ to take her down to the Circle to-morrow mornin’ early—about six or so; afore anybody was up, you know—and try her out. Them was your orders, Cap’n, you remember.”
“Of course I remember. I was going to remind you of it. You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”
“I was cal’latin’ to, but—well, I heard somethin’ a spell ago that made me think maybe I hadn’t better. I’ve been give to understand that—” he leaned forward to whisper once more—“that there’d be somebody else there at the same time me and Claribel was. Um-hum. Somebody that’s cal’latin’ to find out somethin’.”
Foster Townsend’s big hands, pushed into his trousers pockets, jingled the loose change there. He nodded.
“I see,” he said, slowly. “Yes, yes, I see. Somebody named Baker, I shouldn’t wonder. Eh?”
Varunas nodded. “Somebody that works for somebody named somethin’ like that,” he admitted. “You see, Cap’n, I was down to the blacksmith shop a couple of hours ago—got to have Flyaway shod pretty soon—and me and Joe Ellis was talkin’ about one thing or ’nother, and says he: ‘Varunas,’ he says, ‘when is the old man and Sam Baker goin’ to pull off that private horse trot of theirs?’ he says. Course everybody knows that us and Sam have fixed up that match and it’s the general notion that there’s consider’ble money up on it. Some folks say it’s a hundred dollars and some says it’s five hundred. I never tell ’em how much ’tis, because—”
“Because you don’t know. Well, never mind that. Go on.”
“Yup.... Um-hum.... Well, anyhow, all hands knows that our Claribel and his Rattler is goin’ to have it out and Joe he wanted to know when ’twas goin’ to be. I told him next week some day and then he says: ‘I understand you’ve been takin’ the mare down to the Circle and givin’ her time trials in the mornin’s afore anybody else is up.’ Well, that kind of knocked me. I never suspicioned anybody did know, did you, Cap’n?”
“I told you to take pains that they didn’t. You haven’t done it but once. Who saw you then?”