S T O R I E S

Cowboys are born with a trading gene. Usually this involves swapping horses, livestock, trailers, saddles or pocketknives.

Horse-trading requires a special language. If both parties in a trade are cowboys, the buyer is already in "beware" mode.

However, for those who were not born down dirt roads, here is an example of a few choice phrases of trading vernacular used mostly in print advertisements.

"Very alert 12-year-old gelding, foundation stock, strong, heavy-muscled, will watch a cow. Friendly nature, quiet in the arena. Must see to appreciate. $27,000 or best offer."

The literal translation is:

* Alert - he will spook if a bug within five miles moves. Nothing is going to sneak up on him.

* Twelve years old is about the age where horses can no longer be positively aged by their teeth. He could be 34.

* Foundation-bred means he looks exactly like a mustang and was adopted from the BLM in their effort to preserve the world before the wild horses eat it up.

* Strong means your best antique, foot-long, 40-pound Mexican bit won't hold him.

* Will watch a cow means he will watch the cow go right by.

* Friendly nature - he will pick your gloves out of your back pocket as well as gnaw on everything in the barn and everybody else's saddle if tied next to another horse.

* Quiet in the arena - he won't wake up before the cattle get through the stripping chute at the end of the run.

* Quiet in the box - he will sit there until next Friday if you don't liberally apply the spurs when you nod for your steer.

* Must see - the seller is hoping to get you to their pen, lock the gate and not let you out until you buy something.

* The price - that's always a starting place. Actually, the guy would be happy to see $800 and that horse's backside out his gate.

The trading world has three basic components: sellers, buyers and tire kickers. The variety of descriptive phrases applied to horses would enchant any clever wordsmith.

"Not the prettiest head you ever saw, but it's full of cow sense." That means his head looks like a pump jack, is exactly the same length as his back and it would give most horses whiplash to hold it up.

"This is an after-dinner horse." A compliment, to mean that he is a smooth trotting horse who won't jiggle your dinner. It also likely means that he can trot all day in the shade of one tree.

"He has a smooth little cowboy lope that you'll love." This is supposed to infer that he can cover the miles smoothly. Nobody mentioned that it takes the first five miles to get him worked up to this cowboy lope and only 15 steps for him to fall back to that teeth-jarring trot.

"This is a horse who will let you do all the thinking." A good bit of this required thinking will also involve your spurs.

"All that chrome really dresses him up." This horse has enough white that the Quarter Horse Association referred the owner to the paint horse association, and he has white hooves, which will require that he have shoes every day of his useful life.

A buyer might comment that the horse "looks a mite lively." To which the seller will reply, "He's just fun-loving. Don't take that little bucking streak too seriously."

When faced with tire kickers or reluctant buyers, the sellers will sometimes offer incentives.

· Horses are just like bananas. They get cheaper by the bunch.
· Better buy him today, I'm just like an old cow, get up in a different mood every day.
· "He's an easy keeper, and we've had him turned out for about six months resting him. He may be a little fresh." Which really means this fat, fresh horse hasn't been touched in the six months it took for the seller to get his leg cast off after the last time this horse bucked him off.
· "This horse can be ridden by little kids." This invariably refers to the little kid who was raised at the head of the creek and whose normal working attire includes a turkey feather in his hat and his britches tucked in his high top boots.
When all the insults and highflying rhetoric are over, generally both the buyer and seller will be secretly happy. Both will be heard down at the feed store in a day or two describing exactly how they got the better of the trade.

Trading is an art and nobody does it better than the cowboys.