“Yes, I guess I could of,” said Red, “but at first I wouldn’t out of friendship for the brute—for even if he did git me in there, I always figgered there was somethin’ wrong; he went out of his head or somethin’—and after I got hungry enough to of et him, anyway, his carcass had spoiled and was stinkin’ somethin’ terrible. That’s principally what made it so bad. Every breath I drawed was misery.
“Finally I says, ‘Red, you can’t stand this no longer. You’d shoot a pore dumb brute if you saw him in torment like this.’ And so I cocks my six-shooter and holds it to my head, but somehow I can’t pull the trigger. ‘Stand it a little while longer,’ I says to myself, ‘and if help don’t come, shoot.’ I done that three or four times, I guess.
“After a while buzzards begun flyin’ over the hole—dozens of ’em sailin’ round and round. They knowed there was somethin’ dead somewheres around, but they was havin’ trouble locatin’ it. They kept comin’ lower and lower, till directly one comes down into the sink-hole. Then some more come, and they would fly right down close to me. ‘I reckon you come after Frijole,’ I says, ‘but jist wait a little while and you can have me too.’
“And jist then I had an idear. I picks up my lariat right quiet-like and begins unravelin’ it into little strands. In each little strand I tied a noose. Then I takes my seat by the side of the carcass and jist waits. Directly a big turkey buzzard comes right down close, and I throws a loop over his head and fetches him down. Then I stakes him to my belt, givin’ him about six foot of rope. After a while I gits another one. I keeps on until I gits twenty of the vultures staked to my belt; then I fires off my six-shooter, scerin’ ’em all at once.
“Well, sir, them birds jist naturally lifted me right out of that sink-hole.”
“Well, sir, them birds jist naturally lifted me right out of that sink-hole.”
“You were lucky,” said Lanky.
“Lucky! Lad, that wasn’t luck; that was head work. You ain’t heard about my luck yet. Them buzzards begun flyin’ away with me, but I seen what direction they was goin’, and I jist let ’em alone and watched the lay of the land. And when they had me right over a big hay-stack at the headquarters of my own outfit, I reached down and unbuckled my belt, and damn me, if I didn’t land right on the hay without any hurtin’ a-tall.
“I walked up to the house and had a square meal—and I et, too, I’ll tell you—and then I felt as fresh and pert as ever.”