Don't Tamper with Horses

...Part 5 Continuing.

Moss sighed as he rode into Sam Morgant's yard. He had started his part of their detective efforts with excitement, but he was tired of watching and listening. He admitted to himself that he was not a devious sort of person. He was a straight shooter and all the sneaking around that he'd been doing left him chafing to march straight up to Ron Casady and ask for his cutting horse back.

Moss chuckled, imagining the fight that would break out if he did that. His humor faded immediately as he caught a whiff of a heavy scent of garlic and onion that burned his nose. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Inside the barn Sam knelt beside a horse, bandanna across his face and tears streaming from his eyes. The horse lifted its head, its lip stretching out and up. Its foot stood in a steaming bucket of water. "I'm soaking Chip's feet in garlic water," Sam said, as if it was a common practice.

Moss coughed and started to back out of the barn.

"I've got more boiling on the stove, Moss. Toss a chunk of wood on it, would you?"

Wiping his eyes, Moss left the odorous barn and walked toward the house. "I might have known he'd do something crazy like this. Sam's the devious one." He opened the house door to be assaulted by another bout of the garlic stench.

"Heads up Moss!" Orville Wilkins shouted through his own bandanna as he trundled through the doorway. He carried a large pot of garlic water. "Fill another, would you?"

Moss pulled his bandanna over his nose. "We look like train robbers," he grumbled. "Will somebody tell me what's going on?"

Orville set the pot down at the barn door. "We're going to use my hunting dog to follow these horses to the other ones."

Moss raised his eyebrows, then squinted as the garlic vapor made his eyes sting. "What other ones?"

"The other stolen horses. Sam says we're going to let the garlicked horses get stolen and follow to their hideout."

...to be continued.