wagon without sweatin' a hair. Hook him onto a plough and he sure can
make the ole plough smoke."

Annersley shook his head. "That's a mite too fast for me, son. I'd
hate to have to stop at the end of every furrow and pour water on that
there plough-point to keep her cool."

"'Course if you're lookin' for a _cheap_ hoss," said Young Pete,
nothing abashed, "why, we got 'em. But I was showin' you the best in
the string."

"Don't know that I want him. What you say he was worth?"

"He's worth a hundred, to any man. But we're sellin' him cheap, for
cash--forty dollars."

"Fifty," said the trader, "and if he ain't worth fifty, he ain't worth
puttin' a halter on. Fifty is givin' him to you."

"So? Then I reckon I don't want him. I wa'n't lookin' for a present.
I was lookin' to buy a hoss."

The trader saw a real customer slipping through his fingers. "Yon can
put a halter on him for forty--cash."

"Nope. Your pardner here said forty,"--and Annersley smiled at Young
Pete. "I'll look him over ag'in for thirty."

Young Pete knew that they needed money badly, a fact that the trader
was apt to ignore when he was drinking. "You said I could sell him for