Page:The Black Cat v06no11 (1901-08).djvu/10

4 your poorhouse is running over now, and it would be kind of tough on your county if I left 'em for your Board of Supervisor to tackle. I'll take 'em for fifty-one dollars."

He glanced at Uncle Abner with an amused smile, and a titter ran through the crowd, though here and there among Uncle Abner's friends was an uneasy shuffling of feet. Uncle Abner flushed angrily.

"Going," said the auctioneer, lowering his hammer.

"Two hundred dollars," said Uncle Abner, firmly.

The man with the checkered shirt lifted his eyebrows.

"Two fifty," he said, briefly.

"Five hundred," said Uncle Abner.

The circus man looked at him intently and saw the danger signal in his eye.

"You'd better lay in some hay," he said. "I'm going to catch the evening train for Kansas City." He made his way through the crowd as he spoke.

"Anymore bids?" asked the auctioneer, waving his hammer. There was no response.

"Sold!"

"Dead easy to manage 'im," said the trainer a few minutes later. "I'm goin' to catch a train, too, but you won't have no trouble. He'll follow them ponies anywhere. Just give 'im hay till the sun goes down—and be good to 'im."

Aunt Ellen, who had patiently waited supper for an hour, saw at half-past six, with mingled anxiety and astonishment, a strange cavalcade approaching. At the head rode a tall man in a rusty Sunday suit, his seedy straw hat pulled down over his eyes. He was mounted upon a white pony, and led another by a halter. After them, swaying from one side to the other as he rolled along, stepping aside occasionally to reach over the rail fence after some choice morsel, but always keeping a wary eye on the ponies in front, was a dusty elephant, an elephant with little twinkling eyes and short tusks.

Aunt Ellen sat down on the porch steps and wiped her glasses and looked again. Surely that could not be Uncle Abner! The little procession halted slowly in front of the hitching post, and Uncle Abner clambered down from his pony.