“Which ain’t nothing but a question,” replies Chuck, throwing down the two halters in disgust. “Come on and let’s get our broncs. She’s due to get killed in about a minute.”
The four of us lopes down the street to where our animals are tied, and if you asks me I’d say that we went out of town fast. In fact we showed so much animation that Bill McFee, our progressive sheriff, took a shot at us, just on general principles.
We strung off up the road, me and Telescope fighting for first place with Chuck running a close second and Muley bringing up the rear, eating alkali dust like a machine.
We hammers along for about two miles, when all to once we sees a cloud of dust ahead of us. Said cloud is sliding toward the grade down to the Wind River crossing, and we all sighs to think what that runaway team will do to that lady when they hit the boulders of Wind River. We shoves on more steam and unhooks our ropes. Me and Telescope ain’t got room for two loops the way we’re running; so I slips back into second place.
Down that grade we sails and into the willows just short of the ford. Chuck and Muley have picked up a little, which hampers our show to do any fancy rope stunts, and them four animals runs almost a dead heat to where the road breaks straight down to the river. Which only gives us a pitch of about thirty feet to the water’s edge.
I don’t just know what happened then. We’re going too fast to even take a second look. I seen a buckboard, with the horses standing up in the water, and then the next thing I know I’m spinning over and over in the air. Above me is Muley, with his legs spread out like sails, and he’s flopping his arms like he was trying to fly higher. I remember that I laughed at Muley trying to imitate a bird, and just then I took my first bath short of Saturday evening.
I landed in the river flat on my stummick and found out that a feller don’t have to learn to swim in order to do it. All the wind is out of my carcass, but I sure done some fancy crawling until I lands on a sandbar down the river and pumps some more wind into my system. In my pocket is a bottle of “Track Annihilator,” and I immediate and soon finds the need of a stimulant. I hauls it out, removes the stopper and squints through it at the sun.
“Blam!” That bottle fades out of my hand, and all I’ve got left is the cork.
The next bullet cuts a rosette off my chaps; so I slides into the water like an alligator and proceeds to waller off downstream. I may die from drowning—I say may, ’cause I’m taking a chance—but it’s a cinch that if I stay on that sand-bar any longer that hombre with the rifle is going to improve with practise, which will spoil all of Henry Peck’s future ambitions.
I hears a few more shots before I grabs a willer and hauls myself out into the high grass. I’m too tired to hunt for information; so I rusticates there until I hears somebody tramping grass and grunting: