ntry
is old and settled. In a new, undeveloped section like that out there
big things is continually happening. The general impression is that a
trading-man can make more amongst ignorant folks than amongst keen
traffickers, but it is a mistake. Folks that ain't born with the flea of
speculation wigglin' in their brain-pans won't never let loose of
nothing. It is the feller that is eternally on the lookout for
opportunities that will sell the shirt off his back to raise money when
he thinks he sees an opening. Then there ain't no fun nor Christianity
in making money out of a fool. I want to know that a feller is up to
snuff and fairly in the game, and then I'll swat 'im if it is in my
power. It's been the ambition of my life to get the best of old Welborne
across the street there. He's made his pile off of widows and orphans,
and if I ever get him under my thumb I'll crack every bone in his hide."

"Traders that have the knack of it like you have, Alf, are simply born
that way," Cahews smiled. "I never had any turn of that sort. I can talk
an old woman into buyin' a dress pattern off of a shelf-worn bolt of
linsey, or a pair of shoes too tight for her, but this way you have of
buying a feller's wagon that breaks down in the road and having it
patched up by a blacksmith that owes you money, and selling the wagon
for more than it cost new--well, as I say, I don't know how to do it."

"I believe myself, as you say, that the trading turn is born in a
feller," Henley laughed, reminiscently. "I know I was swapping knives
'sight unseen' when I was wearing petticoats. I had a stock of old ones
and I kept the jaws of 'em rubbed up bright. My daddy used to whip me
for it. He was one of the best men, Jim, that ever wore shoe-leather,
and he never could stand to see one neighbor get the best of another. He
was dead agin all the deals I made when I was growing up, but I learnt
him the trick and showed him the beauty of it before I was twenty."

"You say you did?" Cahews sat down and eyed his employer eagerly.

"Yes, it come about through my fust hoss-trade," Henley smiled. "It was
this way. Pa was on the lookout for a hoss to do field-work, and he let
everybody know he had the money, and a good many came his way. He wasn't
any judge of hoss-flesh, and a gypsy, passing along, stuck him--burned
the old chap clean to the bone. It was a flea-bitten hoss that was as
round and slick as a ball of butter, and as active under the gypsy's