Then he walks right away from there, leading me by the arm.
“What did he say?” I asks as we fall through a pole fence and skid out into another plowed field.
“——!” snorts Magpie, tearing the seat of his pants out of the mud, where he had sunk about a foot. “I don’t know for sure, but I think he wanted to bet that his two could yelp louder than all three of ours.”
“Let’s go back,” says I. “I’ve got forty-three dollars that says mine alone can out-yelp anything on earth.”
“You’d lose,” says Magpie sad-like. “I’ve got a high-class yelper myself Sweepstake entries, Ike.”
Then came the cows. Range cows are funny critters and have strange and awful ideas on men on foot. The first thing we knowed we’re plumb surrounded there in the dark and they’re closing in on all sides, rattling their horns, talking low and doing other things that don’t make us feel absolutely safe.
“Stand perfectly still, Ike,” whispers Magpie. “They’ll think we are part of the secenery.”
We groups together and looks as much like inanimate objects as possible. The cows sniffs and grunts all around, wondering in cow talk what kind of a growth we are. Then Magpie’s armful opens up—
“Wa-a-a-a! Wa-a-a-a!”
“Ma-a-a-a-a! Yah-a-a-a-a!” sings mine together.