"Well, he never cussed me all the time I was there. My stock went up with the old man an' my chances was good to get the gal, if I hadn't made a fool hoss-trade; for with old man Galloway a good hoss-trade covered all the multitude of sins in a man that charity now does in religion. In them days a man might have all the learnin' and virtues an' graces, but if he cudn't trade hosses he was tinklin' brass an' soundin' cymbal in that community. "The man that throwed the silk into me was Jud Carpenter--the same feller that's now the Whipper-in for these mills. Now, don't be scared," said the old man soothingly as Bud's scary eyes looked about him and he clutched the buggy as if he would jump out--"he'll not pester you now--he's kept away from me ever since. He swapped me a black hoss with a star an' snip, that looked like the genuine thing, but was about the neatest turned gold-brick that was ever put on an unsuspectin' millionaire. "Well, in the trade he simply robbed me of a fine mare I had, that cost me one-an'-a-quarter. Kathleen an' me was already engaged, but when old man Galloway heard of it, he told me the jig was up an' no such double-barrel idiot as I was shu'd ever leave any of my colts in the Galloway paddock--that when he looked over his gran'-chillun's pedigree he didn't wanter see all of 'em crossin' back to the same damned fool! Oh, he was nasty. He said that my colts was dead sho' to be luffers with wheels in their heads, an' when pinched they'd quit, an' when collared they'd lay down. That there was a yaller streak in me that was already pilin' up coupons on the future for tears and heartaches an', maybe a gallows or two, an' a lot of uncomplimentary talk of that kind. "Well, Kathleen cried, an' I wept, an' I'll never forgit the night she gave me a little good-bye kiss out under the big oak tree an' told me we'd hafter part. "The old man maybe sized me up all right as bein' a fool, but he missed it on my bein' a quitter. I had no notion of being fired an' blistered an' turned out to grass that early in the game. I wrote her a poem every other day, an' lied between heats, till the po' gal was nearly crazy, an' when I finally got it into her head that if it was a busted blood vessel with the old man, it was a busted heart with me, she cried a little mo' an' consented to run off with me an' take the chances of the village doctor cuppin' the old man at the right time. "The old lady was on my side and helped things along. I had everything fixed even to the moon which was shinin' jes' bright enough to carry us to the Justice's without a lantern, some three miles away, an' into the nex' county.