had been
played upon him.

Canby came forward to greet her, with his hand out. She ignored it and
said indignantly:

"I should have spoiled this sale for you, Mr. Canby, if I had seen who
was bidding on these locoed horses."

Though Canby flushed, he shrugged a shoulder and replied callously:

"We all had to get our eyeteeth cut when we came to the country."

CHAPTER X

THE BEST PULLING TEAM IN THE STATE

Leading the cow, and aided by "Tex" McGonnigle, who boasted that he had
a heart as big as the country he lived in and was willing to prove it by
helping him with the locoed horses, Wallie made fair progress as far as
the gate in the last wire fence, where "Tex" had to leave him.

"'Tain't fur now," said that person, passing over the rope with a knot
in the end with which he had belaboured the horses he had driven ahead
of him. "Mog along stiddy and you'd ought to make it by sundown."

"I think I'll lead 'em," Wallie remarked.

"Locoed horses won't lead--you've got to drive 'em."

Nevertheless, on the chance that "Tex" might not know everything, Wallie
tried it after his helper had galloped in another direction.

"The best pulling team in the state!" the auctioneer had declared, and
truthfully. Wallie had a notion they could have moved the Capitol
building if they had laid back on it as they did their halters when he
tried to lead them.

There was nothing for it but to tie their heads together and drive them
as Tex had done, but with even less success. They missed either Tex's
voluble and spicy encouragement or the experienced hand which laid on
the rope end, but the chief difficulty seemed to be that they were of
different minds as to the direction which they should take, and since
the cow was of still another, Wallie was confronted with a difficult
situation.

Dragging the mild-eyed Jersey, which had developed an incredible
obstinacy with the cessation of Tex's Comanche yells behind her, Wallie
applied the rope he had inherited, with the best imitation he could give
of the performance, but futilely.

The cow and the horses pulling in opposite directions went around and
around in a circle until the trampled earth looked as if it had been the
site of a cider-press or a circus.

After they had milled for twenty minutes without advancing a step Wallie
lost patience.

"Oh, sugar!" he cried. "This is certainly very, very annoying!"

The cow was as much an obstacle to the continuance of their