“I'll tell ye why. I was gaein' down frae Rattlesnake this afternoon an' Charlie Price an' his Leezie were out in his bit garden a-plowin'. Mon, ye could hear him for miles!”
It was even so. Old Charlie Price had decided that it was high time to put in his vegetable garden. He went out to the lean-to in his corral to inform Lizzie, the mare, of his intention. Lizzie was always the unwilling partner of these agricultural peregrinations, and, now she saw him approaching with the harness, she ran away with much snorting and scattering of sod.
“Hey, you, Liz,” roared Charlie, “you goot-for-not'ing buckskin lummix, you com mit!” He flourished the halter rope at her. Lizzie flattened her ears, opened her mouth like a yawning snake, and ran at him. Old Charlie let out a whoop that brought the sheriff from Rattlesnake at full speed, and could be heard (so they say) all the way across the river to Wild Goose Flat, six miles away.
Even Lizzie, accustomed as she was to Charlie's mannerisms, was frankly startled and meekly allowed herself to be caught. She did not like to plow. She was a saddler and a pair of tugs and a collar bored her. With a cinch one could puff out in true wild-horse fashion while the latigo strap was being pulled, and afterward be fairly comfortable, but a slipping collar was neither off nor on. She shook herself impatiently and the collar slid down her neck to her ears.
“Hey!” bellowed Charlie, “you don't vear it so! You—” The mare stamped at a fly, bringing her hoof down on the old Dutchman's foot. His blood-curdling whoops and yells brought the sheriff in on a brilliant finale to a record-breaking run.
“What's the matter? Are you being murdered?”
“Who, I'm?” asked Charlie, absent-mindedly. He was nursing the injured member, wondering whether to kick at Lizzie with it, knowing full well that he stood a good chance of her kicking back again' but when she snapped viciously at the puffing sheriff he decided against it.
“You com' to see me?” he asked, in a bland, so-glad-you've-called tone.
“To see you! Why, I've come to save your life!”
“So? Dot's goot, but Lizzie undt me, ve ain't got so much time today. It's vegetables I sell in Rattlesnake undt ve go to plow, now.”