"Bigger lunatics than them two, Tim Doyle and old Chieftain, I never set eyes on," he says. "I was standin' down here by the double doors watchin' some of the day-teams unhook when I looks up the street on a sudden. An' there, tail an' head up like he was a 'leven-hundred-pound Kentucky hunter 'stead of heavy-weight draught, comes that old Chieftain, a whinnyin' like a three-year-old. An' on his back, mind you, old Tim Doyle, grinnin' away 'sif he was Tod Sloan finishin' first at the Brooklyn Handicap. Tickled? I never see a horse show anything so plain in all my life. He just streaked it up that runway and into his old stall like he was a prodigal son come back from furren parts.
"Yes, Tim he's out on the truck with his old team. Tim don't have to drive nowadays, you know. Brother of his that was in the contractin' business died about three months ago an' left Tim quite a pile. Tim, he says he guesses the money won't take no hurt in the bank and that some day, when he an' Chieftain git ready to retire, maybe it'll come in handy."
BARNACLES
WHO MUTINIED FOR GOOD CAUSE
With his coming to Sculpin Point there was begun for Barnacles the most surprising period of a more or less useful career which had been filled with unusual equine activities. For Barnacles was a horse, a white horse of unguessed breed and uncertain age.
Most likely it was not, but it may have been, Barnacles's first intimate connection with an affair of the heart. Said affair was between Captain Bastabol Bean, owner and occupant of Sculpin Point, and Mrs. Stashia Buckett, the unlamenting relict of the late Hosea Buckett.
Mrs. Buckett it was who induced Captain Bastabol Bean to purchase a horse. Captain Bean, you will understand, had just won the affections of the plump Mrs. Buckett. Also he had, with a sailor's ignorance of feminine ways, presumed to settle off-hand the details of the coming nuptials.
"I'll sail over in the dory Monday afternoon," said he, "and take you back with me to Sculpin Point. You can have your dunnage sent over later by team. In the evenin' we'll have a shore chaplain come 'round an' make the splice."