"Five dollars," said Chad, promptly. A man who sat near heard the boy and
turned to look at the little fellow, and was hardly able to believe his ears.
And so it went on. Each time a horse was put up Chad shouted out:

"Five dollars," and the crowd around him began to smile and laugh and
encourage him and wait for his bid. The auctioneer, too, saw him, and entered
into the fun himself, addressing himself to Chad at every opening bid.

"Keep it up, little man," said a voice behind him. "You'll get one by and by."
Chad looked around. Richard Hunt was smiling to him from his horse on the edge
of the crowd.

The last horse was a brown mare--led in by a halter. She was old and a trifle
lame, and Chad, still undispirited, called out this time louder than ever:

"Five dollars!"

He shouted out this time loudly enough to be heard by everybody, and a
universal laugh rose; then came silence, and, in that silence, an imperious
voice shouted back:

"Let him have her!" It was the owner of the horse who spoke--a tall man with a
noble face and long iron-gray hair. The crowd caught his mood, and as nobody
wanted the old mare very much, and the owner would be the sole loser, nobody
bid against him, and Chad's heart thumped when the auctioneer raised his
hammer and said:

"Five dollars, five dollars--what am I offered? Five dollars, five dollars,
going at five dollars, five dollars--going at five dollars--going--going, last
bid, gentlemen!" The hammer came down with a blow that made Chad's heart jump