"'I'll give a silver dollar to the nigger that holds on the longest,' I yelled.
"'Well answered, mate,' sang out the old captain. 'All ready to cut cables. Cut she is!'
"The cow gave a bellow like the roar of a lion, and made a rush with lowered horns at the captain. Now, this was not the course laid down on his chart for her to take; and he and the rest of us were struck all aback, as he afterwards expressed it; but he met the emergency with spirit. He broke his big, Spanish-oak stick on the nose of the brute, and then the old mariner rolled in the dust.
"'Lay aboard of her, men!' shouted the old hero, in a voice like a fog-horn, flourishing the fragments of his stick. 'Lay aboard of the old cuss, I say! Cast your grapplings, Greaser! Seize her helm, some of ye, and throw it hard over to port!'
"Lay Aboard of the Old Cuss!"
"These orders were obeyed with alacrity. Not a man flinched. The loop of the lasso settled over the polished horns to the roots, and Don Juan San Diego set it tight with a twang. Napoleon Bonaparte and George Washington rushed headlong upon her and hung to horns and ears; while the man from Michigan fastened a grip on her lifted tail, as she tore past him, which straightened him out like a lathe. As to myself, I could only stand and gaze with solicitude upon the terrific contest, on the issue of which depended not only the chances of my speculation, but even the preservation of my self-esteem.
"The combat deepened and enlarged itself, as it were. A bull-dog, who was wandering along the road in search of adventure, and two foxhounds joined in the fight. The calf, the only one of the seven thousand five hundred and twenty-three I was ever destined to behold, broke from its pen and ran bellowing to its mother. The dogs bayed, the niggers yelled, the Mexican swore in his delightful tongue; and the stuttering Michigander remained silent, simply from his inability to pronounce the profanity of his feelings.
"Suddenly the cow, which had been slowly working her way, with her several attachments clinging to her, toward the road which ran along the front of the field, turned and started pell-mell toward the river, which flowed wide and deep, through the rushes, at the rear of it. She left the path and took to the corn, and through the mass of growing stalks she swept like a whirlwind. Onward she came. I anticipated the awful catastrophe, and stood riveted to the spot. The old captain still sat in the gravel, where the cow had bowled him, his hand grasping the shattered cane, and his game leg extended. He too foresaw the inevitable. Through the corn came the cow, like a black Saturn attended by her satellites. But her career was too terrific for these to hold to their connection. The laws of the universe forbade it. Napoleon Bonaparte de Neville lost his hold as she crashed into the sorghum patch. George Washington Marlborough tripped over an irrigation ditch, and soared away at a tangent, like a sputtering remnant of a burnt-out world. Don Juan San Diego went the wrong side of a mulberry tree, and the lasso parted with a snap. He never stopped until his momentum carried him through the slats of the neighboring cow-pen. Only the long-legged Michigander kept his hold, and he looked like a pair of extended scissors. I stood aghast at the impending ruin of my hopes, with my lower jaw dropped. The captain alone retained his presence of mind. As the black unit of my last Texan speculation shot by him, with Michigan, elongated like a peninsula, fastened to her tail, he rolled up to his knees and roared:—