"I guess you have dropped five years out of your reckoning somewhere,"
answered the boy. "Jinny is past seventeen. But it's all right. It is
all the same to me. I don't care if she's a hundred," decided Tad,
picking up the halter and leading the mare from the yard.

"Hope she don't run away with ye," jeered the farm-hand, as boy and
horse passed out into the highway. But to this Tad made no reply. He
was too fully occupied with his new happiness to allow so little a
thing as the farm-hand's opinion to disturb him.

Once out of sight of the farm buildings, the lad pulled the mare to
one side of the road, where he examined her carefully.

"Huh!" he exclaimed. "Heaves, ringbone and spavin. I don't know how
much more is the matter with her, but that's enough. Still, I think
she will wiggle along for some time and be of real service if I can
fix up the heaves a little. They must have filled her up on dusty
hay," he decided, examining the mare's throat and nostrils. "I'll get
her home and look her over more carefully."

Tad's course led him through the principal residential street of the
town. But he thought nothing of this, even though his new purchase was
a mere bundle of bones and scarcely able to drag its weary body along.

"She's mine," he whispered, as the sense of possession took full hold
of him. "Mine, all mine!"

Just ahead of him stood the home of Stacy Brown's uncle.

Chunky was standing in front of the gate, both hands thrust into his