“I’m going there to-morrow to have a look at this old ruffian Dangler and his horses.”
“Take a few days to think it over,” advised Jard. “If you walk right up to old Luke’s house an’ say you want to look over his horses with the intention of buyin’ one, he’ll size you up for a millionaire an’ act accordin’. So far, except for the few deals he’s made with me, he’s done all his business down in the States. The farther away from home he sells a horse of the old blood the better he’s pleased. Maybe he’s still scart of the law gettin’ him somehow for what his pa did ninety-nine years ago, or maybe it’s nothin’ but the plain hoggishness of his nature, but he keeps mighty quiet an’ secret about his business in this province. He loses money by it, for you can bet he don’t get what he asks down there among them lads, with three or four days of railroadin’ behind him, but ends in takin’ what he can get. Away from his own stampin’ ground, an’ among men maybe as crooked as himself, but with more brains an’ better manners, I guess he gets the light end of the deal every time. So I reckon he’s scart. If he wasn’t he’d show a certified pedigree for the horses he sells, with Willoughby Girl played up big in it—but nothin’ of the kind! If you was to mention that stolen mare to him he’d pertend he didn’t know what you was talkin’ about—but you’d want to get a long ways off from Goose Crick before dark jist the same.”
“But what would happen if I saw his horses and made him an offer for one of them?”
“I reckon you’d get the horse—if you offered twenty thousand for it, or maybe if you offered ten.”
“No chance! But what if I made a reasonable offer?”
“He’d be sore as a boil; an’ he’d cal-late you’d come all the way from New York jist to spy on him—an’ you’d be lucky if you got out alive.”
“But that’s absurd! Isn’t there any law in this country?”
“Plenty of it. Game laws an’ all sorts. There’s the law old Dave Hinch uses when he gets hold of a bit of paper with your name on it, even if you never saw the danged thing before, or have maybe paid it twice already. But there ain’t no law ag’in a man losin’ himself in the woods. That’s the Dangler way, but don’t tell them I said so.”
“Do you really know something, or are you only talking?”
“I know what I’m talkin’ about, an’ I’m talkin’ for your good, Mr. Vane. I got a pretty clear memory more’n forty years long; an’ I can remember quite a slew of folks who’ve fell out with the Danglers one way an’ another; an’ some of them cleared out, an’ four was lost in the woods—five, countin’ poor Pete Sledge. Pete’s the only man I know of who ever defied the Danglers and refused to run away, an’ is still alive right here in Forkville. But you’d ought to see Pete. He’d be a lesson to you.”