Coonskin went, and K—— continued: "They're two as fine-lookin' jennies as ye'll run across in many a day, both healthy and strong—not too young—not too old—often plow with 'em—kind and gentle—boy rides 'em everywhere—fast, too, but no danger runnin' away. Why, they're twice the size o' your'n, and 'll carry double the load."
"I'm more than satisfied with my donkeys" (very flattering to Cheese and myself), Pod affirmed, "and only require one more. If I am suited with one of your donkeys, I am willing to pay five dollars for it, but I will not trade one of mine, nor will I purchase both of yours."
By this time the animals arrived. They were certainly big enough, and as for the danger of their running away, they didn't act as if they could run ten feet if charged with a thousand volts of electricity. The farmer said he was bound to make a satisfactory deal with Pod somehow, and that if he wasn't convinced by the time we reached his house that both animals weren't superior to either of his (an absurdity on the face of it), then he would consider some other proposition.
When we reached the house, Cheese and I were generously fed, and Pod and Coonskin invited into dinner. Then K—— chased his donks around the yard, and felt them all over, and finally hoodwinked my master to buy one, and trade the other for Cheese. I could have kicked the daylight out of that man.
When K—— was on his way to town with his five dollars, Pod came to the stable. My new companions were crabbed old spinsters, and raised some objections to going with me.
"Where are you bound?" one asked.
"San Francisco," said I, "but I don't know where that is any more than do you. Guess it's land's end." Then I told them how far I had come, and that Pod said only a few days before that the journey had only begun; also, that he expected we donks would fall off some before long, from which I inferred the fall would be gradual and the horrors of death prolonged.
It was enough to frighten the wits out of any old maid, and it took a pitchfork, two hoe-handles and a crowbar to get those donkeys out of the gate. Then one of them balked, kicked, threw Coonskin, broke her halter, and ran back into the yard. She could run after all.
That was enough for Pod. He rode me back into the yard, and told Coonskin to fetch Cheese out of the barn. And it didn't take him long to shift the blanket from that gray spinster to my old chum.
"You just tell your dad when he returns," said Pod to K——'s son, "that I don't intend to put up with any such game. He grossly misrepresented that donkey; it would take a week to travel a mile with her. As I have paid him for the other one, she belongs to me and I shall push her along with the outfit. But this animal," and he pointed to Cheese, "is mine yet awhile. Good-bye."