"Indeed!" said Hadley; "I am well acquainted in C----. Did you hear any
news there?"

"Well, no, not in C----, but a little way beyond the town a horse had been
stolen the night previous, which caused considerable excitement in the
neighborhood."

"How far beyond was it?"

"About five or six miles, I should think."

"Did you learn any of the particulars?"

"Why, yes, pretty much all of them, I think."

"I know pretty much everybody in that region, and it may be that it was
some of my friends from whom the horse was stolen. What was the owner's
name, if you heard it?"

"Mandeville, I think; yes, Mandeville."

"Mandeville! I know him well. Has he any idea who took the horse?"

"I think he _suspects_ some one for the theft--a young man that had been in
the neighborhood, but disappeared the same night of the theft, and no one
knew where he had gone."

"In the neighborhood," repeated Hadley, musingly, as if thinking aloud. "It
must have been the stranger; and yet I thought he was gone some time ago."