"'To the post-office,' says he. 'Maybe you'd let me put up the team there and bring it back in the morning. I'll pay you ten dollars down for security,' says he, coughing and acting tired like.
"Thinks I, this isn't any night for horse thieves and if I give him Spunky Pete, it'll be a safe risk, for he won't go but just such a ways from the stable when he balks and bolts back.
"'All right,' says I, 'what kind of a team do you want, chaise or sleigh?' He thought a minute and says, 'A sleigh'll jar less a night like this, and if you've got any old rag of a robe, just pile her in.' Well, he started off all right toward the depot, the bells jingling nice, and pretty soon I see the sleigh come back with somebody else within and go up the turnpike this way, and so I went upstairs and turned into bed. It was after I'd got into a good first sleep when something seemed to be pounding me in a dream and I started up with wife pulling my sleeve and calling, 'There's somebody pounding away on the front stoop and yelling like mad. Do you suppose one of the mules could have broke loose?'
"'One of the mules? That's Spunky Pete and no other,' says I, tumbling into my clothes and grabbing a lantern. He always pounds and screeches that way if I don't give him his feed first of the bunch. Yes, sure enough, there was Pete pounding away on the porch. At first I thought he'd served them some trick and upset them, but when my eyes fell on the lines, I knew different; they were tied to the dash rail with a bit of string!
"That made me suspicious and I looked Pete over as I led him to the stable. For a cold night he had surely sweat more than the short run warranted. Then I noticed the bells didn't jingle—the string on the girth was gone (I found it after under the seat) and the two big ones on the shafts were hushed by being wrapped in paper. 'I wonder what's up,' says I, 'the horse has come back safe, but there's something amiss somewhere. A man doesn't give up ten dollars to ride three miles on any straight errand.' So this morning I started up to find if any company had come up to Mr. Gilbert's, and I met 'Lisha here with the buffalo, which, I declare, I hadn't missed, and he told me the rest."
"Did you keep the bits of newspaper?" asked Gilbert.
"Yes, they're down home; they're torn from The Boston Traveller of last Friday."
"I wonder if any one took the milk freight down last night; it carries a passenger car," ventured the Justice of the Peace. "Nobody, so far as Mr. Binks the agent saw; he loaded on some milk, but the ticket-office isn't open for that train," said 'Lisha.
"Can you describe the man?" asked the Justice of the Peace, poising his pencil.
"That's just what I've been trying to do for myself," said the liveryman. "Not suspecting anything, I wasn't particular, and he had a dark cloth cap with a chin piece that pretty well covered his mouth. He was short and thick-set, 'n' I think his eyebrows were light, but that's about all, except that he had a long scar between the two first fingers of his right hand. I noticed that when he slapped the ten-dollar note down on the table."