“Well, I don't know but I prefer to have myself to thank for a thing,” said the first.
“I was displaying myself,” continued the second. “One day last summer it was. We come on a big snake by Torrey Creek corral. The boys got betting pretty lively that I dassent make my word good as to dealing with him, so I loped my cayuse full tilt by Mr. Snake, and swung down and catched him up by the tail from the ground, and cracked him same as a whip, and snapped his head off. You've saw it done?” he said to the audience.
The audience nodded wearily.
“But the loose head flew agin me, and the fangs caught. I was pretty sick for a while.”
“It don't pay to be clumsy,” said the first man. “If you'd snapped the snake away from yu' instead of toward yu', its head would have whirled off into the brush, same as they do with me.”
“How like a knife-cut your scar looks!” said I.
“Don't it?” said the snake-snapper. “There's many that gets fooled by it.”
“An antelope knows a snake is his enemy,” said another to me. “Ever seen a buck circling round and round a rattler?”
“I have always wanted to see that,” said I, heartily. For this I knew to be a respectable piece of truth.
“It's worth seeing,” the man went on. “After the buck gets close in, he gives an almighty jump up in the air, and down comes his four hoofs in a bunch right on top of Mr. Snake. Cuts him all to hash. Now you tell me how the buck knows that.”