We cannot do better than give his own description of that action as related beside the camp-fire that night, to a circle of admiring friends.
“Well, you must know,” he began, after finishing his supper and lighting his pipe, “that long-legged frigate o’ mine that Dan calls a chestnut—though a cocoanut would be more like the thing, if you take size into account—he’s as keen for the chase as a small boy arter a butterfly, an’ before I could say ‘Jack Robinson,’ a’most, he had me into the middle o’ the herd an’ alongside o’ the big bull. Any one could tell it was him, in spite o’ the dust we kicked up, by reason o’ the side-glance o’ his wicked little eye, his big hairy fore’id, an’ his tail stickin’ out stiff like a crook’d spankerboom.
“In course I was not a-goin’ to fire into him, so I gave the frigate a dig wi’ my heels—tho’ I’d got no irons on ’em—an’ tried to shove up alongside of a fat young cow as was skylarkin’ on ahead. As we went past the bull he made a vicious dab wi’ his horn, and caught the frigate on her flank—right abaft the mizzen chains, like. Whew! you should ha’ seen what a sheer she made right away to starboard! If it hadn’t bin that I was on the look-out, I’d ha’ bin slap overboard that time, but I see’d the squall comin’, an’, seizin’ my brute’s mane, held on like a monkey wi’ hand an’ leg.
“Well, before I knew where I was, the cocoan— I mean the chestnut, had me alongside the cow. I stuck the muzzle a’most into her ribs, and let drive. Down she went by the head, fairly scuttled, an’ I could hear young Archie givin’ a wild cheer astern.”
“‘That’s the way to go it, Jenkins!’ he yelled. ‘Load again.’
“But it was easier said than done, I can tell you. You see, I’ve bin brought up to cartridges all my life, an’ the change to pullin’ a stopper out o’ a horn wi’ your teeth, pourin’ the powder into your left hand, wi’ the gun under your left arm, an’ the pitchin’ o’ the frigate, like as if it was in a cross sea, was raither perplexin’. Hows’ever, it had to be done, for I was alongside of another cow in a jiffy. I nigh knocked out two o’ my front teeth in tryin’ to shove the stopper in my mouth. Then, when I was pourin’ the powder into my hand, I as near as could be let fall the gun, which caused me to give a sort of gasp of anxiety, when two o’ the three bullets dropped out o’ my mouth, but I held on to the third wi’ my teeth. Just then a puff o’ wind blew the powder out o’ my hand into the buffalo’s eyes, causin’ her to bellow like a fog-horn, an’ obleegin’ me to pour out another charge. I did it hastily, as you may well believe, an’ about three times what I wanted came out. Hows’ever, I lost a deal of it in pourin’ it into the gun; then I spat the ball in, gettin’ another nasty rap on the teeth as I did so, but I’d bit the ball so that it stuck half-way down.
“It was no time to think o’ trifles. I gave the butt an extra bang on the pommel to send the ball home, shoved the muzzle right in among the hair an’ pulled the trigger. There was a bang that sounded to me as if the ship’s magazine had blown up. It was followed by a constellation o’ fire-works and—Archie Sinclair must tell you what happened arter that, for I misremember the whole on it. The fire-works closed the scene to me.”
Archie, nothing loath, and with glistening eyes, took up the narrative at this point, while the hero of the hour rekindled his pipe.
“The fact is,” he said, “the gun had burst—was blown to atoms; not a bit o’ the barrel left, and a great lump o’ the stock struck Jenkins on the head, stunned him, and tumbled him off his horse.”
“That was the magazine explosion and fire-works,” explained Jenkins.