"Humph! Brown went off by himself and did herding like that before. He acts queer lately. He don't say much."
"That's what Pete said. Me and him trailed round Belleview all morning, and I got him to go along and bid in this horse for me. I saw he was a good horse, but I did n't know he was rope-wise. Look at his backbone. Look at how he's coupled up."
The drug clerk, having affected horse wisdom and miscarried, now stepped forward and began feeling the distance between the horse's rump and floating ribs, a move evidently intended to show his knowledge of this last technical term.
"What's all that for!" inquired Todd, with a touch of surprise. "Ain't them bones plain enough to see? I guess you think he is one of them nice fat horses that you have got to feel."
"That's right, Al," remarked Whallen. "Buy a horse like that and you see what you 're getting. What's the use feeling when the package is open?"
The drug clerk, thus suddenly put out of countenance by the very bones he had been flouting, stepped back and held his peace; and presently, under cover of Whallen's going, he took his own departure.
Al, now that he had vanquished his opponent and made him seek the intrenchment of his counter, cast his eye about and searched the length of Main Street, one side and then the other. He expected to get sight of some one of the crew that had brought the cattle into the loading-pens; but they had totally disappeared. After looking into a few likely places, and finding that he had guessed wrong, he paused on a street corner to give the matter deeper thought.
"Come on, Al," said Toot Wilson, hastening past.
"Where at?"
"Up to the saddle-maker's. They 're in there. He is making a fine one. Did you see it?"