[piosenniel]

Olo had come down to the stable just in time to see a familiar hobbit face driving off in a pony cart. It was Podo, and he gestured briefly in greeting and then rolled on down the road at an unhurried pace, moneybox clinking as he drove over bumps on the path.

Olo waved back at the retreating figure, and entered the stable to see to the horses. He led them all out and put them into the large corral, where they might wander about safely while he mucked out the stalls again and put down a fresh layer of hay.

He was just finished raking out the old hay, and disposing of it, when he spied something small and shiny gleaming in the dirt where Podo's cart had recently been parked. Olo bent down to investigate, and picked up the flat, round, gold object with his fingers. 'A coin!', he thought to himself. He ran out of the stable to hail Podo, to see if it was his lost money, but saw no sight of the now gone merchant.

'Strange,' he thought, rubbing the ground-in dirt off the face of the coin,'this doesn't look like any coin I've seen around these parts.' It was small, and irregular in it's roundness, with a crudely stamped picture on each side. One side held the rudely done image of a sailing ship, while the other side bore the face of a man with the letters CSTMR stamped below it.

'I'll bet Holly or Miss Bird will know where it's from.' he said to himself. He stuck it in his pocket, intending to show it to them later.

He rounded up the horses and led them down to a grassy knoll near the river, where they might run about freely, and pick at the grass as they wished. Olo sat down, back against a tree, and watched them while he smoked a pipe or two and daydreamed.