“But he struck me,” said Lanky.
“Shore he did. Them devilish critters will strike after they have their heads cut off. Reflex. That’s what they call it. Dirty trick they played on you.”
“Well, well,” said Red. “The critter’s head is gone. Still I think we better cut his hand off to make shore. Them things is so pizenous the bite might kill him anyway. I seen a man bit jist like that one time....”
“And he never was right in his head again,” said Hank.
“Which one of you was it?” asked Lanky.
SPEED
On Lanky’s second night in the cow camp, there were many allusions to his snake-bite.
“Now, Lanky, watch out for rattlesnakes and don’t git bit again,” said Hank.
“I hope you’ll recover without an operation,” said Red, “but still I think we ought to of cut your hand off. No tellin’ what might happen. Ought to be on the safe side.”
“Don’t let ’em buffalo you, Lanky; don’t let ’em buffalo you,” said Joe. “You ain’t such a greenhorn as lots of chaps I’ve seen. Why, when Red here first come to this outfit, he was so ign’rant he didn’t know split beans from coffee. He thought you had to have a gun to shoot craps; he thought a dogie was somethin’ you built houses out of. He thought a lasso was a girl, and remuda a kind of grass. When the boss got ringy, Red said he was a wrangler. Why, he even thought a cowboy was a bull.”