“Yeo-o-o-o-ow!” yells somebody. “Look out!”
There’s a sudden movement at the far end of the congregation. I sees a bronc turn a handspring, a pair of cream-colored broncs leaves their halters at the hitch-rack, while they comes over to visit us, and Violet is no longer a lost dog.
Violet is about the size of a he-wolf, and she seems to think she can outrun the string of tomato cans which are tied to her tail. She goes through, under and over that crowd, and what she don’t do to us is left for that pair of broncs and the buckboard. A million dog-fights start right there.
Me and Legree are close together and the confusion seems to bring us close to each other. We hits the sidewalk together and I’m underneath. A couple of rotten boards break, and yours truly disappears.
When I recovers sufficient-like to peek out it’s about all over. Every bronc that was tied to the rack is gone, and part of one rack is missing. Most of the crowd is on the far side of the street, but our side is still well represented. Two local dogs are still hauling at each other.
Dirty Shirt Jones’ head protrudes from the side of that big drum, and his right arm is wedged straight up, making him look like a drowning man what is going down for the last time.
Mighty Jones has got one boot through the mechanical end of a big brass horn, while from inside the other boot protrudes that banner, with the proclamation missing.
Magpie is lying near me, with both feet through Wick Smith’s picket fence, and he’s still studying that little note-book.
“Was that last one Lucy or Hannibal?” he asks, slow and deliberate.
“It—it don’t make no matter,” says a weak voice, “they’re all gone past anyway,” and the man who got his hat punctured in the newspaper office rises up from behind the fence, and tugs at the brim of his hat, which is hanging around his neck.