"He's got him now!" says Wind River. "He's got him now, for all my next year's salary! I see it in his face!"
And Windy was so dead sure he impressed the rest of us. So there's silence, whilst old Foxey Bill is chewin' away in the barrel, and the ram is comin' over the grass—t-r-rmt, t-r-rrmt—as hard as he can paste her, head down and eyes shut. Bill, he doesn't see anything either, until there ain't more'n three foot of air between 'em, and then he jumps aside!
"Swoosh!" goes the ram into the water, and Billy straightens out his little curly tail and waves it in the air like a flag. And holler! I wisht you could have heard that pig! Nothing could been more human. "I've got the deady-deady on you, you hook-nosed, slab-sided, second cousin of a government mule!" says he. "Oh! I've got you where I want you and the way I want you, and it's up to you to convert yourself into cash at the earliest opportunity, for you won't be worth much in the market when I'm tired of my fun!" This he says as he gallops to the other side, to head the sheep off, his mild blue eye on fire. I tell you it's dangerous to rouse up a fat person with a mild blue eye.
[Illustration: "And holler! I wisht you could have heard that pig">[
A sheep don't swim much better than a mowin' machine, and this feller got desperate—he was for the shore, no matter what broke. And Bill ripped the wool out of him for fair as he tried to scramble up.
"Our fight, Steve!" says the Doctor. "I knew he'd do him all the time! You throw up the sponge and we'll yank the critter out!"
"Let him drown," says Steve. "I don't like him, hide nor hair—and, besides, think what he's cost me."
But that wouldn't do. Hastings would have looked so mournful, happiness couldn't get along in the same territory with him. So out comes Mr. Ram. Done. Everlastingly done. All in and the cover screwed down. We pointed our fingers at him and did a war-dance around him, sayin': "Agh—hagh! You will, will you? Now, don't you wish you'd been good!" He hadn't a word to say. And that good old Billy, he comes up and rubs Wind River's legs out from under him just as natural as ever, not set up or swell-headed a bit, like the gentleman he was.