"Why sure," Mason answered. "I'd like to tell it to you the best I can; but you know very well that I can't tell it the way old John Monroe could. He's half Indian and that means that he's a natural sign talker; and then he's got a dash of French in him, that makes him willing to talk, and he talks well; and then I expect the Scotch—for old Hugh Monroe's father must have been Scotch, if the name counts for anything—gives him a sense of humor. So he's a rattling good story-teller. Of course, for me, and maybe for you, he's sometimes a little hard to understand, because he talks a language made up of English, French, Cree and Blackfeet. Sometimes I miss the connection, but his stories are always good. The best ones that I ever heard, though, were those that he told in Cree to Billy Jackson, and that Billy Jackson interpreted for me, for Jackson is no slouch of a story-teller himself."
As they talked, the men rode over toward the cattle and going about them started those that were lying down and at last got the whole bunch moving very slowly in the direction they wished them to go. Among the cattle were three or four partially crippled animals that had been lamed either by the horns of other cows in the crowding, or by falling in bad places. Most of the hurts were trifling and would soon pass away, but there was one two-year-old steer that had a very bad shoulder and could use only one foreleg. He could get along very slowly and with difficulty. As Rube and Jack passed each other, riding to and fro to keep the stock going, Rube pointed to the steer.
"I hate to drive that cripple," he said; "and I'd leave him in a minute if I wasn't afraid that the wolves or coyotes would kill him to-night."
"Yes," answered Jack; "I am afraid if he were left behind he would never see the morning light; even a bunch of coyotes could kill him without any trouble, for just as soon as they crippled his hind legs, he would fall over and they would eat him alive."
"I reckon," decided Rube, "the best that we can do is to keep him going, and if we get him into camp to-night, we'll let McIntyre say what shall be done with him."
About noon the boys came to a stream and, driving the cattle down to it, made up their minds that they would give them an hour or two of rest. When Mason came up, Jack spoke to him about the crippled steer and asked what he thought about it, repeating what he and Rube had said a little while before.
"You're right about that," said Mason. "I don't believe he'd last out the night; for, as you say, the coyotes would kill him. If he were well, he could stand off a bunch of coyotes, but as he is, he wouldn't last long. You talk about crippling up his hind legs. Do you savvy, Jack, how it is that a buffalo or a steer, or a cow, gets hamstrung?"
"I always supposed that a wolf just bit through that big tendon that runs down from the ham to the hock, and, of course, if that's cut or broken that cripples that leg entirely."
"Right you are," said Mason, "up to a certain point; but did it ever occur to you how big and tough that tendon is, and did you ever stop to think whether a wolf could bite through it with one snap of his jaws?"
"No; I confess that I never did. But now that you speak of it, it looks to me like a pretty good-sized contract for any animal to bite through that tendon at a single snap."