What really happened was that he stumbled on a stone and his hands were jerked loose. In another minute the cow was out of sight in a hollow. Skinny scrambled to his feet and went back after the rope, trying not to limp because he could see the girl looking at him through the fence.
He felt pretty chesty to think that he had rescued a maiden, only he didn't know what to do with her, now that he had saved her.
She spoke first, as he stood there sort of brushing his clothes off.
"Are you hurt, boy?"
"What, me?" said Skinny. "Me hurt? Say, didn't you see the critter run when I got after her?"
"I should say I did, only I was scared. Wasn't you scared?"
"I don't scare worth a cent," he told her. "I ain't afraid of any cow a-livin'. You don't suppose I'd 'a' chased her all over the pasture, if I'd been scared, do you?"
"N-no, but——"
"Say, if my lasso hadn't slipped, there would have been something doing. It's lucky for you that I got hold of her tail. That's the way to do it. When you twist a cow's tail, it scares 'em."
It's just as Hank says, you never can tell what a girl will do. That girl tried to say something; then choked up and went off into a fit of laughing that made the tears roll down her cheeks and left her so weak that she had to hang on to the fence.