I seen all this in a lot less time than it takes to tell it. The thing is comin’ too danged fast, I sabe that much, and I know that an automobile don’t scare at elephants. A runaway horse goes past me, hits its rump against the platform of Victory and Progress and skids the thing aside.
Mrs. Smith goes down in a lump, and Mrs. Gonyer lands on her knees, with that one hand still up in the air. Then Victory and Progress hits the East.
They knocked Gunga Din loose from the street, but they didn’t remove him. I got Mrs. Smith in my arms, but Mrs. Mighty Jones went past me so fast that I didn’t have no chance to make a collection. Then Gunga Din got his four feet on to the terry-firma agin’ and started out.
He bowed his head, put it against that float and started for Buck’s saloon front. I seen Magpie’s head come up from among the wreckage and he starts hammerin’ Gunga Din over the head with a piece of two-by-four, but he might as well ’a’ kissed him, for all the good it done.
Wick Smith comes gallopin’ alongside of us, yellin’—
“Leggo my wife! Leggo my wife! Dang you, Ike—leggo her!”
“Tell it to her!” I yelps back at him. “You — fool, I ain’t doin’ the holdin’.”
The rear wheels of that equipage hits the sidewalk, lifts up real sudden, and we begins to shove that whole works plumb through Buck’s saloon front. It was then that I managed to get loose from another man’s wife, and proceeds to fall backward off that elephant.
I dunno what in — Sahara was doin’ right behind Gunga Din, unless he was supposed to be there; but I do know that I lit kinda folded up across his long neck, and he starts to run with me. We went around in a circle three times before I fell off, and that — camel walked all over me.
Then I sets up in that dusty street and tries to see what is goin’ on. Horses are runnin’ around like they was in a circus ring, and some of ’em are draggin’ wagons and buggies behind ’em, which makes the street a dangerous place for to be. One wagon circled the street twice before I notices that Dirty Shirt is standin’ up in the wagon, kinda balancin’ himself, with his arms spread out wide.