“We all expects to see him git kilt, but he jest trots along in front of the critters wavin’ his slicker and firin’ his six-shooter. After he’d run that way about ten miles, the herd got to millin’ and purty soon they quieted down, and we never had no more trouble with ’em.
“That jest naturally took all the pertness and spirit out of them brutes. They was so ashamed of themselves that from then on out they was as gentle as a bunch of milk cows.
“The only thing that hurt Pete was that when it was over, his nose was bleedin’ like six-bits.”
“Got too hot, I suppose,” said Lanky.
“Naw,” said Joe, “that wasn’t it. The bleedin’ was from the outside. He jest run so fast that the wind jest naturally peeled all the hide off his nose, and he had to keep it tied up for about ten days till he growed some more skin.”
“I bet a hoss and saddle,” said Red, “that he couldn’t of turned old man Coffey’s bull like that. That brute had speed. One time old man Coffey shipped out a train-load of cattle from where he was ranchin’ on the Lapan Flat; and this here bull decides he wants to go with ’em. They cut him back, and the train pulls out in the night.
“Well, sir, the next mornin’ them cowpunchers looks out the caboose winder, and there’s that bull trottin’ along by the train, bellerin’ and pawin’ up the dust, and hookin’ at the telegraph poles as he passes ’em by. He follered that train all the way to Kansas City and had to be shipped back.
“The fellers started to sell him to the packers jist for spite, but they knowed old man Coffey never would git over it if they did.”
“Yeah, I heard of that critter,” said Joe. “Fact is I rode a hundred miles jest to see him once, but I didn’t git to.
“We gits to old man Coffey’s place about dinner time, and we goes in and asks if he’s home.