“Thank you very much, but I think not,” said Mrs. Cornby. “He runs away too much as it is and if anything happened to him the children would be heartbroken. I suppose you’re Jim Meadows of the Pony Express that we have been reading about in the paper.”
“That’s right,” said Jim proudly. A sudden thought struck him. The editor and Dr. Cornby were close friends. “Would you do me a favor, Mrs. Cornby? Don’t let Mr. Arnold hear about the trouble I had with the cattle. He might print it in his newspaper and bad publicity like that could ruin my business. I’m going to drive cattle by a different route after this, anyhow.”
Mrs. Cornby laughingly promised she would remain silent. Jim got back on his horse and headed home for lunch. He would get a smart dog like Horace some day, he decided. But first, before taking on any more liabilities, he wanted to solve the problem of keeping Ticktock permanently. Mrs. Cornby had been nice, agreeing to keep quiet about the incident. He was glad the steer hadn’t ruined her begonias, though why anyone set such a store by ugly waxy-leaved plants like begonias, he didn’t know. Women are hard to understand, he decided.
After two more successful and uneventful trips driving cattle to town, Colonel Flesher offered Jim an additional job.
“How would you like to work for me Saturday afternoons and evenings at the sales barn?” asked the stock buyer with a wave of his fat hand toward the huge auction barn near the stockyards.
“That sounds swell, sir,” said Jim. He had attended part of the auction one afternoon with his father and had enjoyed it immensely.
“I’ll give you a dollar and a half and your supper. Since I don’t suppose you’d consider a proposition that didn’t include your horse, I’ll throw in feed for him too,” offered the colonel.
“It’s a deal,” said Jim, shaking hands. “When do I start?”
“Three o’clock this Saturday.”
Anything and everything was sold at the colonel’s Saturday sales. There were horses, sheep, cattle, goats, pigs and poultry auctioned off in the big barn. The farmers who always came to town Saturday afternoon or evening to do their shopping brought whatever they wished to sell. You could buy garden tools, tractors, chairs, setting hens or pianos. Anything that was offered was put on the block and sold to the highest bidder. There were items ranging from fifty cents to five hundred dollars.