"I think I'll lead 'em," Wallie remarked.
"Locoed horses won't lead—you've got to drive 'em."
Nevertheless, on the chance that "Tex" might not know everything, Wallie tried it after his helper had galloped in another direction.
"The best pulling team in the state!" the auctioneer had declared, and truthfully. Wallie had a notion they could have moved the Capitol building if they had laid back on it as they did their halters when he tried to lead them.
There was nothing for it but to tie their heads together and drive them as Tex had done, but with even less success. They missed either Tex's voluble and spicy encouragement or the experienced hand which laid on the rope end, but the chief difficulty seemed to be that they were of different minds as to the direction which they should take, and since the cow was of still another, Wallie was confronted with a difficult situation.
Dragging the mild-eyed Jersey, which had developed an incredible obstinacy with the cessation of Tex's Comanche yells behind her, Wallie applied the rope he had inherited, with the best imitation he could give of the performance, but futilely.
The cow and the horses pulling in opposite directions went around and around in a circle until the trampled earth looked as if it had been the site of a cider-press or a circus.
After they had milled for twenty minutes without advancing a step Wallie lost patience.
"Oh, sugar!" he cried. "This is certainly very, very annoying!"
The cow was as much an obstacle to the continuance of their journey as the horses, since, bawling at intervals, she planted her feet and allowed her neck to be stretched until Wallie was fearful that it would separate, leaving only her gory head in the halter.