“We’ll put up here till morning, if they can accommodate us,” Pep told Vic. “Say, mister,” he added, advancing to the farmer, “have you seen anything of a man and a horse—” and Pep rattled off the tiresome formula comprising a description of man and beast.
“A piebald horse!” fairly snorted the man, looking both interested and suspicious—“no, I haven’t; but I’d give a dollar to anyone who has.”
“Is that so?” spoke Pep, pricking up his ears and believing he was going to find out something of value. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m looking for jest sech an animal,” was the spirited reply. “Night afore last someone drove into my orchard over by the field gate with a wagon and a sheet. He lifted one of my bee hives, stand and all, wrapped it in the sheet and scooted.”
“But you didn’t see who did it?” queried Vic, eagerly.
“No, but a neighbor boy coming home late did. That’s how I know about the horse being a piebald one. He saw the sheet tied around the hive and got scared. Thought at first it was a ghost.”
“We are looking for just that horse,” Pep advised the farmer.
“Oh, robbed you, too?”
“No, sir, the people who own that horse did worse than that. We’ve been hunting for them the last twenty miles.”
“You won’t find that horse, I’m thinking,” said the farmer. “The animile is a total stranger to these parts. Never heard none such in the country. My boys spent a hull day trying to run down the varmints.”