Everybody knows
that in the morning the horse was gone and you were gone.
BLANCO [in a forensic manner] Sheriff: the Elder, though known to
you and to all here as no brother of mine and the rottenest liar
in this town, is speaking the truth for the first time in his
life as far as what he says about me is concerned. As to the
horse, I say nothing; except that it was the rottenest horse you
ever tried to sell.
THE SHERIFF. How do you know it was a rotten horse if you didn't
steal it?
BLANCO. I don't know of my own knowledge. I only argue that if
the horse had been worth its keep, you wouldn't have lent it to
Strapper, and Strapper wouldn't have lent it to this eloquent and
venerable ram. [Suppressed laughter]. And now I ask him this. [To
the Elder] Did we or did we not have a quarrel last evening about
a certain article that was left by my mother, and that I
considered I had a right to more than you? And did you say one
word to me about the horse not belonging to you?
ELDER DANIELS. Why should I? We never said a word about the horse
at all. How was I to know what it was in your mind to do?
BLANCO. Bear witness all that I had a right to take a horse from
him without stealing to make up for what he denied me. I am no
thief. But you havnt proved yet that I took the horse. Strapper
Kemp: had I the horse when you took me, or had I not?
STRAPPER. No, nor you hadnt a railway train neither. But Feemy
Evans saw you pass on the horse at four o'clock twenty-five miles
from the spot where I took you at seven on the road to Pony
Harbor.
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