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Updated: June 26, 2025
Hugh had taken note of that very circumstance himself when prowling about the remarkable building; in fact, he had even half pulled himself up to see what the roof looked like, though never dreaming at the time he would so soon find need of his knowledge. Monkey Stallings was, of course, in his element. None of the others could do nearly so well as he when it came to this sort of thing.
Still, that would not prevent him from saying that he had some good news for the man he sought. "How far away from the Landing does he live, Mr. Stallings?" he asked, promptly. "Reckons as how it air all o' fo' mile, sah. An' in the present disturbed condition o' the country, mebbe, sah, it would be wise foh you to defer yuh visit thah to mawnin'," came the reply.
He had confessed that he was too hard up to wager much on it, but he would risk a few dollars on his judgment on a running horse any day. He also said that Stallings had come back at him, more in earnest than in jest, that if he really thought his harness mare could outrun the brown, he could win every dollar the outfit had.
The atmosphere of mystery soon cleared after reaching the herd, when Bob Blades informed us that it was the intention of Stallings and Quarternight to steal the old man's harness mare off the picket rope, and run her against their night horses in a trial race. Like love and war, everything is fair in horse racing, but the audacity of this proposition almost passed belief.
Stallings and the old homesteader went out to the starting point to give the riders the terms of the race, while the remainder of us congregated at the finish. It was getting dusk when the blanket was stripped from the mare and the riders began jockeying for a start.
"I wonder," Billy was saying, becoming more and more audacious, it seemed, on the principle that give one an inch and he will want an ell "I wonder now if he'd listen to me if I asked him to let us have a chance to get in the next picture?" Monkey Stallings laughed harshly at hearing that. "Well, you are a greeny, Billy, I must say," he declared.
"One thing sure, to begin with," remarked Hugh, after they had left the camp behind them, "we're a unit in saying that racket came from where we happen to know the old castle lies." "Oh! that's an easy nut to crack!" declared Monkey Stallings. "The sounds came right down the wind, and any one can see it's blowing softly straight from the haunted mansion."
As I had driven oxen as a boy, I was going to offer my services, when Joe Stallings eagerly volunteered in order to avoid using an axe. Slaughter had some extra chain, and our four mules were pressed into service as an extra team in snaking logs. As McCann was to provide for the inner man, the mule team fell to me; and putting my saddle on the nigh wheeler, I rode jauntily past Mr.
The travel-stained old rascal proved to be a good mixer, and before dinner was over he had won us to a man, though Stallings, in the capacity of foreman, felt it incumbent on him to act the host in behalf of the outfit.
Then Stallings in turn became crafty and diplomatic, and after asking a number of unimportant questions regarding conditions, returned to the joint with the old man, taking Fox Quarternight. To the rest of us it looked as though there was going to be no chance to bet a dollar even. But after the herd had been watered and we had grazed out some distance from the river, the two worthies returned.
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