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Thar they be, antein', goin' it blind, straddlin', raisin' before the draw, bluffin', an' bettin', an' havin' the time of their c'reers. "'It's the spring flood, an' the old Cumberland is bank-full an' still a-risin'. The flat boat is softly raisin' an' fallin' on the sobbin' tide.
"It'll be so much better 'n walkin' back 'n' forrard on the beats. Wonder 'f they'll give us bosses or mules to ride." "I'd like to know what put that idee into yer head," said Shorty. "Whydn't the Ord'ly say last night there 'd be guard-mountin' at 9 o'clock this mornin'? I s'posed that fer a man to be mounted meant straddlin' a boss or s'mother kind of an animal."
Tom, mark! you old fat rascal, and sure enough, right where I should have been, if I'd been a doin right, out came two woodcock big ones they looked like hens, and I kind o' thought it was a shame, so I got up to go to them, and called McTavish to go with me; but torights, jest as he was a gitting up, a heap of critters comes all chasin up, scart by a dog, I reckon, kickin their darned heels up, and bellowin like mad and there was one young bull amongst them, quite a lump of a bull now I tell you; and the bull he came up pretty nigh to us, and stood, and stawmped, and sort o' snorted, as if he didn't know right what he would be arter, and McTavish, he gits up, and turns right round with his back to the critter; he got a bit of a round jacket on, and he stoops down till his head came right atween his legs, kind o' straddlin like, so that the bull could see nothing of him but his t'other eend, and his head right under it, chin uppermost, with his big black whiskers, lookin as fierce as all h-ll, and fiercer; well! the bull he stawmped agin, and pawed, and bellowed, and I was in hopes, I swon, that he would have hooked him; but just then McTavish, starts to run, going along as I have told you, hind eend foremost bo-oo went the bull, a-boooo, and off he starts like a strick, with his tail stret on eend, and his eyes starin and all the critters arter him, and then they kind o' circled round and all stood still and stared and stawmped, 'till he got nigh to them, and then they all stricks off agin; and so they went on runnin and then standin still, and so they went on the hull of an hour, I'll be bound; and I lay there upon my back laughin 'till I was stiff and sore all over; and then came Waxskin and all Archer, wrathy as h-ll and swearin' Lord how they did swear!
"You've been cut out all right," retorted Polly, glancing at his legs, "whatever it's for." Parenthesis was not abashed. "Yep, fer straddlin' a hoss," he proudly replied, as if that were the chief end of man. Polly, thus balked in her teasing, tried a new form of badinage. "Say, the boys are all braggin' on your bread-makin'. Won't you give me your receipt?"
"He jest 'lowed that if 'stid of warin' pants an' straddlin' hosses, ye'd pick ye out an upstandin' man an' wed him, thar mout come ter be some real men in ther fam'ly." The girl's face crimsoned. "I thought ye said hit war me ye fought erbout, Joe." "I did say so, Alexander." "An' ye didn't see no aspersion thet called fer a fight in ther way them words teched you?"
Here we stand with them ar identical unbounded seas a rollin' up on ary side of us! the world a pintin' at us as them that should be always ready, with our lamps trimmed and burnin'! and, yit, oh my dear brothers and sisters and onconvarted friends! as fur as I have been inland and I have been a consid'able ways inland, as you all know, whar it would seem no more than nateral that folks should settle down kind o' safe and easy on a dry land univarse I say, as fur as I have been inland, I never see sech keeryins on and carnal works, sech keerlessness for the present and onconsarn for the futur', as I have amongst the benighted critturs who stand before me this evenin', a straddlin' this poor, old, Godforsaken Pot Hook!"
Ther whole blame Yankee caboodle tuke a blaze et me, I reckon, leastwise they wus most durn keerless with ther shootin' irons, an' I rode one feller over, knocked him plum off his hoss down ther bank, kerslush inter ther water, by thunder, an' then ther derned critter I wus a straddlin' bolted. Thet's 'bout all I know, Cap, till I lit yere."
Perhaps they didn't get the telegram. I'll risk it. Is there a side door you could slip me in?" "Yas, sir! We got four side doors, 'sides de back one. Ain't nuffin we ain't got. You git right in de wagon, an' I'll hist de bags in. 'Tain't de way I'd like to kerry you up to de mansion, straddlin' a ice-cream freezer wid de snow in yer face, but I'll git you dere!"
Looey, even if I am a cow-puncher, an' muscle bound from straddlin' a saddle fer so many years." "What's the use, when we can run away from him in a gasoline wagon. That machine is standing in front of the office of Truax & Wells, and they have sold a lot of cattle for us in times past.
"Nels, whoever was straddlin' Stewart's hoss met somebody. An' they hauled up a bit, but didn't git down." "Tolerable good for you, Bill, thet reasonin'," replied the cowboy. Stillwell presently got up and walked swiftly to the left for some rods, halted, and faced toward the southwest, then retraced his steps. He looked at the imperturbable cowboy. "Nels, I don't like this a little," he growled.
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