SWAPPING HORSES AND HORSE JOCKEY TRICKS. 295 



wagon that he had brought from home to feed them with and 

 thus save expense. He was a very honest appearing lad of 

 seventeen or eighteen summers and almost as many winters. 

 He said they wanted to sell so bad that his father had told him 

 to sell the one that would sell the best, but for some reasons 

 they would rather keep the gray mare, as she was a great road- 

 ster and very highly bred, in case they should conclude to raise 

 a colt. On the other hand, as they had quite a lot of cord- 

 wood to haul to market the next winter, the horse would be 

 worth the most for that purpose, and at the same time the 

 horse mated the one left at home better than the mare did ; 

 although the mare would pull her part with any of them. 



This farmer's son was one of the most honest appearing lads 

 I have ever talked with, and to help him out I purchased the 

 gray mare, and I thought the best way to get her home — 

 some forty miles — was to drive her ; so after paying for her I 

 started out to purchase a cheap vehicle and harness for that 

 purpose. When I had got my outfit complete I found that the 

 mare was tied to the fence and the boy and the other horse 

 was gone. I at once harnessed and hitched my purchase to a 

 second-hand tilbury, but with all the coaxing and persuading I 

 was master of, and with the assistance of friends, she could not 

 be induced to pull an empty and light vehicle of two wheels a 

 rod. In order to help me out of my dilemma there were 

 plenty of kind people about who expressed their willingness 

 to help me out by letting me have something that I could 

 drive, the result being that I traded with an Irish horse- 

 jockey, and got a fine roan mare that I knew would draw a 

 wagon as I had ridden after and driven her in one before 

 making the exchange and paying my boot money. 



This mare I took home, and on examination I found a small 

 cord about the size of a fish-line tied so tightly around the top 

 of her head, at the base of the ears, as to have cut nearly its 

 bigness into the flesh. When this was taken off and after heal- 

 ing up the sore and giving her a two- weeks rest, I found her so 

 completely useless and a chronic balker that I concluded to 



