“You said that last week at Templeton,” laughed a man in the crowd.  “Go on!”

Whereupon the auctioneer once more addressed his hearers in a burst of vocal fireworks.

“I wonder what Prescott and his mucker friends are here to bid on?” Fred Ripley was asking himself.  “Whatever it is, if it’s nothing that I want for myself I’ll bid it up as high against them as I can.  For, of course, they’ve pooled their funds for whatever they want to get.  They can’t put in more than a quarter apiece, so a dollar and a half is all I have to beat.  I’ll wager they already suspect that I’m here just to make things come higher for them.  I hope they do suspect!”

It was just after the Fourth of July.  The summer sun shone fiercely down upon the assemblage.

“Perhaps, first of all,” announced the auctioneer, after pausing to take breath, “it will be the proper thing to do to offer the tent itself.  At this point, however, I will say that the foreclosing creditor of the show himself bids two hundred dollars on the tent.  No bid, unless it be more than two hundred dollars, can be accepted.  Come, now, friends, here is a fine opportunity for a shrewd business man.  One need not be a showman, or have any personal need of a tent, in order to become a bidder.  Whoever buys this tent to-day will be able to realize handsomely on his investment by selling this big-top tent in turn to some showman in need of a tent.  Who will start the bidding at three hundred dollars?”

No one started it.  After the auctioneer had talked for five minutes without getting a “rise” out of any Gridley citizen, he mournfully declared the tent to be outside of the sale.

“Has anyone here any choice as to what he wants me to offer next?” questioned the salesman of the afternoon.

There was no response.

“Come, come, gentlemen!” rebuked the auctioneer.  “Don’t let the July sun bake your intellects, or the first cool day that comes along will find you all filled with unavailing regrets.  Hasn’t some one a choice as to what should be offered next?”

Still receiving no reply, he heaved a sigh, then added: 

“I see that we shall have to start action in some way.  Therefore we’ll bring out something that is action personified, with grace mingled.  Bring out the ponies.  Gentlemen, I am now going to offer you your choice of eight of the handsomest ponies you ever-----”

“But there are forty ponies and thirty-two good wagon horses,” piped up a business man in the audience.

“There were,” corrected the auctioneer, mournfully.  “But most of the live stock was rented.  Colonel Grundy had hoped to buy the stock gradually out of the receipts of the show.  All that he owned in the way of live stock consisted of eight ponies.  And here they come!  Beauties, aren’t they?”

Despite the heat of the day it was as though a frost had settled down over the scene.  Many of the men present were butchers, grocers or others who had hoped to pick up cheap horses to be used in their business.