The World for Sale, Volume 2.

In a bustling frontier town where gossip travels faster than the river, a crafty horse dealer named Jowett navigates the tangled networks of local power. He teams up with the ever‑resourceful handyman Fabian Osterhaut, whose reputation for solving anything from a Sunday‑school picnic to a midnight dance keeps him in everybody’s business. When their chief, Ingolby, warns Jowett that a seemingly simple job might be a “penitentiary” affair, the two men are pulled into a dangerous game of deception and alcohol‑fueled bluff.

A planned strike at the town’s mills and a secret plot to sabotage the newly built bridge loom on the horizon, promising chaos for the community. Jowett’s spontaneous gin‑night at a local tavern, meant to win the trust of a rough French crew, spirals into a tangled web of threats, false bravado and whispered conspiracies. As loyalties shift and rumors sharpen, listeners are drawn into a vivid portrait of a place where humor and menace coexist, and where every casual encounter might hide a larger scheme.