The Price of a Random Shot

Fred Carter, of Fremont, is finding out how it feels to pay for a dead horse. On Saturday night his slumbers were disturbed by the clanging of a bell hung to the neck of a horse owned by a neighbor. The animal roams around the town grazing, and his bell makes a clanging loud enough to rouse the neighborhood. Mr. Carter endured the noise for several hours, but at last arose, took down a small rifle of only .22 caliber, went to the door, and fired a single wild shot in the direction from which the noise had come. The clanging stopped and Mr. Carter went back to bed and slept. Yesterday morning on going out he found that the horse was a corpse. It lay close by his fence dead as a mummy with flies swarming over it, for that random shot had hit a vital spot. After studying the situation, Mr. Carter decided to buy the horse. He went out, hunted up the owner and, without mentioning that the horse was dead, asked the price. The owner was willing to sell, and $70 was agreed on as the price. Mr. Carter went back to his house to get the money. While he was gone the owner heard of the animal's untimely death and his indignation at the slaughter was so great that when Mr. Carter returned he refused to sell for less than $120. Mr. Carter is now studying how to buy a dead horse without paying a boom price for it.