It was Hank’s turn. “Too bad about Ike,” he said. “But I don’t doubt a-tall it’s so, like you say, fer I seen a similar case. Very similar case, except it wasn’t a man’s leg.
“Me and Jim Arbury hitched up the hosses one mornin’ and went out to bring in a little stove-wood. He headed out towards a little mesquite thicket, and jest before we got to it, I seen the lead hoss shy.
“‘What’s the matter with old Pete?’ I asks Jim.
“‘What’s the matter with him?’ Jim says. ‘My God, man,’ says he, ‘look at that reptile! big as a fence post!’
“And shore nuff there’s a great big rattler a-holt of the wagon tongue. He’d nabbed it, and he wouldn’t let go.
“Jim knowed exactly what to do. He jumped down and pulled out the couplin’ pin, lettin’ the double-tree go, and drove the team out of the way. ‘Grab the axe,’ he says. Well, I jumped out with the axe and begun work. I shore hated to do it, but I knowed it had to be done. I had to chop off the wagon tongue, and be damn quick about it too, to save the wagon.”
“Them tales of yours and Joe’s jist made me think how lucky Jack Pierson and me was not to be kilt one time,” said Red.
“The boss sends us out in the winter time to fence a section starve-out. We puts up the posts on three sides and then we finds that the boss hasn’t figgered right, ’cause there ain’t none fer the other side. We starts to the canyon, thinkin’ we’d have to cut some and snake ’em out. We gits to the rim-rock, and there we sees what looks like a lot of cedar logs. We remarks on our good luck and wonders how the timber got there, but when we drives up close, we finds a bunch of big hibernatin’ reptiles. There was ten thousand, I guess.
“‘Cuss the luck,’ says Jack; ‘I thought we’d found our posts.’
“‘We have,’ says I; ‘and why ain’t we? Them critters are big enough and stiff enough. We’ll take ’em along.’