"I HEARD MY MAN SAY ... 'STRIKE ME DEAD IF HE HASN'T ...'"
"'There goes that locoed Coyote,' I heard him say; 'he's trailing for a crossing; damned if I don't follow him. Come on, you fellows,' and after me they galloped like madmen.
"Just below the place that was like a dam the water was not too bad, for the ice had jammed up above, and it was spreading out all over the flat. I plunged in, for, Comrades, it was a time of great hurry. Swimming a river is not of my liking—none of my kind like it—but this seemed an evil night altogether, with no choice but to reach the uplands.
"'Sure thing! the Coyote's dead to rights on this outfit,' I heard my Man say; and wallow, wallow, in the bronchos came, splashing and snorting. And so we crossed just as the ice broke in the jam, and swept down like the swift rolling of many stones. I heard my Man say as they all got down from the horses to empty the water out of their long boots, 'If I ever clap peeps on to that Coyo again, I'll shove grub pile into him till he busts. Strike me dead if he hasn't saved the whole outfit of us.'
"Anyway I knew there would be much feeding and no harm if I kept close to these evil Men-kind, for they were great givers.
"I sought to save the one man, and if there be any credit it comes to me because of that; the others followed him, and even they said he had saved them."
"I think it is a true tale," declared Mooswa, "for I once had a happening in saving the life of a Boy who had been good to me."