“I went to Tom immediately and asked him about it,” Pitch continued gravely. “I asked him if what I’d learned from the photographer was actually true. He laughed. I remember his laughing very well. Of course, it was obvious to him that I was tremendously interested and excited. Tom told me to sit down and relax because, he said, there wasn’t a bit of truth to the story. He’d heard it mentioned every so often for the past fifteen years, but believed none of it. It made a good human-interest story for newspaper readers, he said, and I remember he also intimated that the editor of the local paper, an old friend of his, was capable of making up such a story for the benefit of his readers.”

“Then it’s not true,” Steve interrupted, obviously disappointed, “none of it. But Pitch, how did the horses get there, then? And why does the government of Antago leave them on Azul Island when they could have much better pasture land here?”

“That’s what I wondered, too, Steve,” Pitch returned, “and that’s exactly what I asked Tom. His first answer was, ‘How do animals get anywhere? They were taken there, of course!’ To me, his answers were most confusing. I didn’t know what he was driving at until I asked him why the government of Antago allowed him, as agent in charge, to wrangle the horses only once every five years. And why did they limit the number of horses to be removed? Why did they insist that enough horses be left on Azul Island to maintain the progeny of this breed? Why, indeed! if the story wasn’t true?

“He just laughed at me for a long time. Then he said in his most cynical way, which can be so very aggravating, that he believed it wasn’t so much the Antago government which was interested in these horses as it was the Antago chamber of commerce! And then he repeated that it made a good story, a story that could be placed in many foreign newspapers to publicize Antago, which was what the chamber of commerce wanted! He even intimated that he wouldn’t be surprised to learn some day that the horses had been taken to Azul Island from Antago for the express purpose of creating such a story!