Ponies might disbelieve that a filly still unpossessed of her cutie mark would leave home in wintertime just to right a fearsome wrong. But in short, here's how it happened.

That year on the day we ran the leaves, a droop-eared gray earth pony came straggling up to the back door at the Acres. My sister offered him a job, and he took it.

For my part, I mistrusted him first thing. He bowed and scraped to Applejack but curled his lip at me. He called himself Lawn Chainey, his cutie mark was a bottle spraying water from a nozzle, and he said he specialized in yard work. So AJ set him to raking leaves.

I had my own chores, but I finished early before the afternoon's scheduled snow. Upstairs, I settled in with a potions books, but a squeak-squeak-squeak from outside kept derailing my attention.

When laughter began to mix with the sound, I peered through the curtains and saw Chainey up on his hind legs with the rake balanced atop his nose while he juggled three red balls. Dead leaves still littered the ground, and worse than that, the rest of the hired hoofs were the ones laughing.

Then Applejack came running. "This ain't time for clowning!" she shouted.

A frown spread over Chainey's face like frost on a windowpane. Those three red balls shot from his front hoofs like stones from a sling and knocked my sister sideways. Chainey then flipped the rake, caught it, and smashed AJ's head so hard, the rake shattered to kindling.

Bedlam arose. I raced outside to see Macintosh arriving, Applejack stretched out in the fallen leaves, and Chainey racing toward the train station with AJ's hat wobbling between his ears.

I snatched my saddlebags from the porch and took off after him just as Cloudsdale swept the snowstorm in behind me.

---

I stewed the whole train ride. Chainey's cutie mark, I realized, was a seltzer bottle and his antics those of a rodeo clown. Which meant I had one destination.

Appleoosa's stationmaster directed me to that old trailer, and when I knocked, the door just pushed open. Inside, spilling over a busted bed, lay Trouble Shoes. The salty stink in the air made me sneeze, but a pot of cold water over his face woke him nicely. "Lawn Chainey," I said. "I'm looking for him."

Trouble Shoes groused how he'd been out late with the troupe celebrating, so I heated the next pot to brew coffee, and that got him talking. Except what he said was, "Chainey's no name I know."

I described what had happened, and his long face got longer. "Sounds like Lucky Red Pepper. Least they called him that till I joined the troupe. Then he said I'd switched our lucks. I tried telling him what you girls said, that I never had bad luck, but he seemed unconvinced. Ain't seen him the past several weeks."

Which was all I needed to know. "Where'm I likely to find this Pepper?"

"The hills." Trouble Shoes heaved himself to his hoofs. "Reckon I'd best show you."

Hills, he'd said, but all I saw was gorges and crags. Trouble Shoes led me up for three whole days and halfway to Dodge Junction before we came through a narrow passage between two boulders to find a dusty shack leaning against the bluff. Out front was the scoundrel I'd known as Lawn Chainey, and on his head was Applejack's hat.

He smirked. "Got me a lucky hat, Shoes! You'll hafta take your trouble back again!"

"Ain't your hat, Red." Trouble Shoes patted my bow. "It rightly belongs to this filly's sister."

Chainey's face tightened. "Not no more, it don't."

Trouble Shoes snorted. "A triple negative?" He shook his head, and a bushel of clown paraphernalia dropped from his own hat. "Fill your teeth, you son of a—" And he stomped a bulb horn so hard, it near to knocked me over.

What followed was no goof-off. Chainey tried to juggle and pratfall, but Trouble Shoes simply charged, tripped, and slid himself into both the slighter pony and his hovel. Leaving the scene looking like a cyclone strike and wearing Applejack's hat, I followed Shoes to the nearest rail junction, thanked him kindly, and rode home.

AJ had been languishing and feverish in my absence, but soon as I put that hat on her, she perked right awake.

So I'd do it all again if I had to.