Storekeeper (From High Lonesome Country)
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When you own a General Store on the outskirts of civilization, you get a unique set of problems along with it. For one thing, you have to stock your store a little different than you would a general store in say Cheyenne or Denver. When you're at the back door to the wilderness, you know you are people's last chance for a lot of necessities, so you always order extra things like flour and sugar, tobacco, ammunition, and such. But you also have to be well supplied in such things as hunting and trapping equipment, and prospecting tools as well.
Now traps will sell new or used just as long as the condition is good, so I keep a sign posted in the store window that says I'll buy used traps. But people wanting to sell this sort of thing never seem to realize two important factors.
Number one, once an item leaves my shop with a bill of sale, it is considered to be second hand, no matter what kind of shape it's in when the customer wants to sell it back to me. People seem to understand that if you was to buy a new wagon, and you kept it in your barn, day and night, and it never once got used, it's still never gonna bring you the money you paid new for it if you was to sell it. So why can't they see the same is true with such things as traps.
Why just a couple of weeks ago, a couple of fellas came in and bought all sorts of traps. They said one of the locals had hired them to trap cougars, wolves, even bears that were killing his livestock. Well I sold them what they wanted, even told them when I thought they was buying more than they needed.
Well, it weren't more than two weeks later when they came back wanting to barter to sell me back all that equipment. I'll admit it was obvious some of them traps was never used, but even brand new, I buy wholesale and sell retail, just like every other businessman.
Well, that young fella was willing to take a lower price for the things they had used, but he was expecting me to pay full retail price for the traps that weren't used. I tried to tell him I'd be outta business in a month if I was to run my business so foolishly. I offered him a fair price of half what he had paid new. He countered with an offer to throw in a dead cougar.
Heck, he ought to pay me to take a dead cougar off his hands. It takes a lot, and I mean a lot of work to gut and skin an animal that size, and tanning is a a backbreaking and messy job.
Now his friend just stayed in the sidelines, and it was obvious he was finding humor in his friend's escalating frustration, but I didn't see no humor at all in the whole situation, and I finally told that young fella that if he didn't like my offer, he was welcome to take his business elsewhere.
Which brings me to the second important factor for a good businessman. Never open a business of any kind, when there's similar competition in your back yard. In my case, there ain't another shop willing to buy back traps within a hundred miles of my business.
I finally reminded these two fellas of that fact, and also reminded them that carting a dead animal in the back of their wagon for a hundred miles in this heat would be a magnet for flies and likely wolves, not to mention the stench of rotting meat would likely force them to abandon the wagon altogether.
That wiped the smile off the other fella's face and it didn't take long before he was siding with me, even after I dropped my offer to forty percent of the retail price and told them that cougar stayed with them. Well, the other fella finally caved in and accepted my offer and I paid him cash money just to get them on their way.
The last I seen of them two, they was headed to the livery to try to sell their wagon. Now I know the livery owner, and he ain't gonna want that dead cougar either so I know it's gonna take a far site better dickering than that fella did with me to unload that dead animal.
Likely take a silver tongue, if you ask me.