HORSE DEALING 239 



love ye ! lie's as spry as a fiddler and as pleasant 

 as a tea-party. He's dirt cheap at four hundred 

 dollars." 



' As we did not quite agree with our American 

 friend as to this fact, we took leave to express our 

 dissent, the surest and most comprehensive method 

 being to offer half the money. After a good deal of 

 swearing, lying, higgling and bargaining, the horse 

 was ours for two hundred and fifty dollars ; and 

 he did in part deserve the high eulogiums Major 

 Slocombe passed upon him; he was a good honest 

 horse, and ran gamely and well.' l 



There is some difference between selling and 

 giving a horse. The old proverb says you should not 

 look a gift horse in the mouth ; but among certain 

 American Indians it seems the custom for the giver 

 of a horse to give the recipient a good thrashing. 



'When General Street and I arrived at Kee-o- 

 kuk's village, we were just in time to see an amusing 

 scene in the prairie a little back of his village. The 

 " Foxes " were making up a war party to go against 

 the " Sioux," and had not suitable horses enough by 

 twenty, had sent word to the " Sacs " the day before, 

 according to ancient custom, that they were coming 

 on that day at a certain time to smoke that number 

 of horses, and they must not fail to have them ready. 

 On that day and at that hour the twenty young men 



1 The Sporting Magazine, 1843. 



