“A-settin’ on that tornado and a-spurrin’ it in the withers.”
“He gits on Widow-Maker, and that hoss begins to go through his gaits, doin’ the end-to-end, the sunfish, and the back-throw; and about that time the rider goes up in the sky. Bill watches him through a spyglass and sees him land on Pike’s Peak. No doubt he would of starved to death up there, but Bill roped him by the neck and drug him down, thus savin’ his life.”
“Yeah,” said Red, “Widow-Maker was jist the sort of hoss that suited Bill exactly. For one thing, it saved him a lot of shootin’, because he didn’t have no trouble keepin’ other people off his mount; and as for Bill, he could ride anything that had hair and some things that didn’t have. Once, jist for fun, he throwed a surcingle on a streak of lightin’ and rode it over Pike’s Peak.
“Another time he bet a Stetson hat he could ride a cyclone. He went up on the Kansas line and simply eared that tornado down and got on it. Down he come across Oklahoma and the Panhandle a-settin’ on that tornado, a-curlin’ his mustache and a-spurrin’ it in the withers. Seein’ it couldn’t throw him, it jist naturally rained out from under him, and that’s the way Bill got the only spill he ever had.
“Yeah,” continued Red, “I reckon Bill was mighty hard to throw. A smart lad he was, and a playful sort of feller, too. In his spare time he used to amuse his self puttin’ thorns on things—bushes and cactuses and the like, and he even stuck horns on the toads so they’d match up with the rest of the country.”
“I see he’s been at work in this country,” said Lanky. “Did he live all his life in Texas?”
“Naw, he didn’t,” said Joe. “Bill was a good deal like his old man. When he had killed all the Indians and bad men, and the country got all peaceful and quiet, he jest couldn’t stand it any longer, and he saddled up his hoss and started west. Out on the New Mexico line he met an old trapper, and they got to talkin’, and Bill told him why he was leavin’, and said if the old man knowed where there was a tough outfit, he’d be much obliged if he would tell him how to git to it.
“‘Ride up the draw about two hundred miles,’ says the old trapper, ‘and you’ll find a bunch of guys so tough that they bite nails in two jest for the fun of it.’
“So Bill rides on in a hurry, gittin’ somewhat reckless on account of wantin’ to git to that outfit and git a look at the bad hombres that the old man has told him about. The first thing Bill knowed, his hoss stumps his toe on a mountain and breaks his fool neck rollin’ down the side, and so Bill finds his self afoot.