Manzanita flipped the lines and started the mules, stooping over the slip, following it in the attitude of a sprinter who starts with fingers touching the ground.
“Now set yer slip.”
Manzanita lifted the handles slightly and set the point of the pan in the ground. The fine dirt began entering.
“Now keep liftin’ it—a little higher—a leetle higher—but not too high, or——”
Bam!
The mules, suddenly relieved of their load lurched forward. The pan of the slip had flopped over, the handles striking the doubletrees with force almost enough to snap them off. Manzanita lay sprawled on the ground, her mouth full of sand.
“You let ’em go too fast, and you raised the pan too high,” said Wing o’ the Crow gravely. “Did it hurt you?”
“I never get hurt much,” Manzanita said cheerfully. “I’m down half the time, for one reason or another. Don’t mind me.”
“Now watch me,” suggested Wing o’ the Crow.
She picked up the lines, and with a deft flip righted the slip. She laid hold of the handles.