unsettled, too, and didn’t know where to start in–and so he stood there
sneezing, and shovelling dust over his back, and bellowing every now and
then, and thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar circus horse for
breakfast, certain. Well, I was first out on his neck–the horse’s, not
the bull’s–and then underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head
up, and sometimes heels–but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be
ripping and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you
might say. Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us and brought away
some of my horse’s tail (I suppose, but do not know, being pretty busy at
the time), but something made him hungry for solitude and suggested to
him to get up and hunt for it.
And then you ought to have seen that spider legged old skeleton go! and
you ought to have seen the bull cut out after him, too–head down, tongue
out, tail up, bellowing like everything, and actually mowing down the
weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a
whirlwind! By George, it was a hot race! I and the saddle were back on
the rump, and I had the bridle in my teeth and holding on to the pommel
with both hands. First we left the dogs behind; then we passed a jackass
rabbit; then we overtook a cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when
the rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to the left,
and as the saddle went down over the horse’s rump he gave it a lift with
his heels that sent it more than four hundred yards up in the air, I wish
I may die in a minute if he didn’t. I fell at the foot of the only
solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could
see with the naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark with
four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was
astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my
breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now, if he did not think of
one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously.
There was a possibility that the bull might not think of it, but there
were greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I would do in
case he did. It was a little over forty feet to the ground from where I
sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from the pommel of my saddle—-”
“Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with you?”
“Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you talk. Of course I didn’t.
No man could do that. It fell in the tree when it came down.”
“Oh–exactly.”
“Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end of it to the
limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and capable of sustaining
tons. I made a slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it down to see
the length. It reached down twenty-two feet–half way to the ground.
I then loaded every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt
satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one thing that I
dread, all right–but if he does, all right anyhow–I am fixed for him.
But don’t you know that the very thing a man dreads is the thing that
always happens? Indeed it is so. I watched the bull, now, with anxiety
–anxiety which no one can conceive of who has not been in such a
situation and felt that at any moment death might come. Presently a
thought came into the bull’s eye. I knew it! said I–if my nerve fails
now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded, he started in
to climb the tree—-”
“What, the bull?”
“Of course–who else?”
“But a bull can’t climb a tree.”
“He can’t, can’t he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a