THE ENGLISHMAN. 103 



I soon saw from the way he was drifting that he 

 wanted my brown horse and, according to his talk, he 

 had one that he wanted to trade in on account, as the 

 storekeepers say. Well, one word led to another and 

 by the time we had satisfied the wants of the inner 

 man, he had me out in the yard to look at his horse. 

 It was dark by that time, but I was not so very par- 

 ticular so long as I could get a glimpse of the horse 

 with a stable lantern and have a chance to run my 

 hand over his head and legs. The Englishman had 

 seen my horse when I drove into the yard. That was 

 one point in his favor, but as he was doing the trading, 

 if I did not want to make the shift all I had to do was 

 to say 'No.' 



"On entering the stable he walked into a wide stall 

 and led out a high-headed bay gelding sixteen hands 

 full, with black legs and a tail that touched the floor. 

 His mane was long and wavy, while his foretop 

 almost touched the tip of his nose. From the way he 

 peeked about the stable I knew that his eyes were all 

 right, and as there was bran on his nose, I could see 

 he had been feeding on something that the man with 

 a double whiffletree on his tie would not be giving 

 to a nag which had trouble with his wind. Aside from 

 a couple of wind puffs his legs were clean, while he 

 walked as limber as an eel, although he appeared a 

 trifle dull, as he moved off after standing a minute or 

 two. I could not for the life of me find a hole in him ; 

 still the man wanted to swap. His mouth showed 

 him to be ten years old, and that was about all I could 

 object to, other than his coat felt dry and hard; still 

 you might expect that from a horse kept up on dry 

 feed all winter. As I had nothing to say, I kept look- 



