it quite lively for us,
and decided to sell the whole rig at any price.

We drove to within about a mile of Norwalk, when I alighted and walked
into the town for the purpose of finding a buyer.

Frank drove to a small inland town eight miles south of Norwalk, where I
agreed to meet him the next day.

The following morning I met a middle-aged gentleman on the streets, and
asked him if there were any horse-buyers in town. He asked what kind of
horses I had for sale. I told him I only had one, and gave a description
of the animal.

He said he was buying horses, and would drive out with me and see if we
could deal.

He hitched up a pair of horses, and taking another gentleman with us,
started south. Upon arriving at our destination, we found Frank
quartered at a nice country hotel.

The two men looked our whole outfit over, scrutinizing it very closely,
and showed no signs of wanting to buy, and did not even ask our price.

I then said:

"Gentlemen, we will sell you this whole rig cheap, if you wish it."

Finally, after I had repeated several times that I would sell it
dirt-cheap, the old gentleman ventured to ask what I considered cheap?

"Well, sir," said I, "you can have the whole outfit for twelve hundred
dollars."

"Great Heavens!" he exclaimed. "Do you call that cheap?"

"Well," I answered, "you needn't buy unless you want to."

They then drove off, when I said:

"Frank, those men have had a full description of us and our rig, and
we'd better skip."

Frank said he had a trade about worked up with the landlord's father,
who lived three miles from there. He wanted to trade a fine horse for
our carriage, and thought it best to take our chances of staying to
close it up.

After dinner the landlord accompanied us to his father's farm. We had to
travel one mile west and two north. On our way there, and about a half
mile from town, we had a conversation with a young farmer acquaintance
of the landlord, who said if we didn't make a deal as we expected, he
would give us a trade of some kind on our way back. On reaching the farm
we found a handsome four-year-old colt unbroken, but as we could see, a
valuable animal.

We traded our carriage for it and a cheap saddle and bridle. When we
came to look the carriage over we found an iron brace broken, and the
bargain was, that we were to take it back to town and pay for getting it
repaired, and then leave it in care of the landlord.

We started back, the landl