A hired hand has been accused of stealing farmer Lud Mosley's calico horse, but he insists that he did not do it, and tells the story of how the mix-up occurred. Two nights ago, the man had said he wanted to ride a ways, and his boss Mr. John told him to take the horse Betsy. Mr. John said he could take the Texas saddle, but he insisted on going bareback. As Mr. John knew, the man had been going to see Lud Mosley's youngest daughter Naomi. He was only supposed to go on Sundays, but she had started telling him to secretly come on Thursdays as well. The man rode to Lud Mosley's house. While he was waiting for Naomi to come out, he was scared of just standing there on Betsy in case Mosley woke up and looked outside. So, he opened the barn door and put her in the first stall he could find in the dark. When the man left the Mosley house, it was the middle of the night, and pitch black outside. He could not see anything in the barn, so he felt his way to the stall. He did not feel a bridle, and thought Betsy had slipped it off, so he found a halter and put it on her and rode home. He thought Betsy felt a little different but did not think much of it. The next morning, Lud Mosley, the sheriff, and a few other men came to Mr. John's house looking for the man. They found Lud's horse in the barn, and brought the man to jail. He had not fully closed the door for Betsy's stall at the Mosley house the previous night, so she had come home and both horses were there. Lud Moseley wants to send the man away for twenty years, because he does not want him marrying Naomi. Instead, he wants her to marry a rich widowed farmer that lives near them. The man knows that Naomi knows the truth, and he does not know whether or not she will tell it, because he is just a hired hand and maybe she has decided she does not want to marry him. The man does not want to tell the real story to the sheriff, because Naomi would not be able to marry anyone else if they all knew that she had been sneaking out to see him. No matter what Naomi's decision is, the man decides to stand by it, because he has told her he would do anything for her.