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Updated: June 2, 2025
"We'll tell Snake and Yellin' Kid about it when they come back," decided Bud, as he and his cousins returned to camp when darkness had completely fallen. For it was useless, after that, to search for the perpetrator of the joke. Or was it a joke? That is what the boy ranchers asked themselves more than once. Contrary to their half-formed expectations, the night passed quietly.
It had stopped yellin' by then, an' it was settin' up straight, with its eyes all round an' its cheeks all pinked-up with havin' just woke up, an' it looked awful cute, in spite of its mother.
"That's what they call 'em, Geoff but there ain't much boxin' to it; real boxin' don't go down wid d' sports, it's d' punch they wanter see good, stiff wallops as jars a guy an' makes his knees get wobbly swings and jolts as makes a guy blind an' deaf an' sick. Oh, I been like that, an' I know an' it ain't all candy t' hear everybody yellin' to the other guy to go in an' finish ye!"
"I'll prove it of course they have to be going in the same direction," stipulated the new cowboy. "Even with that I doubt it," went on Snake. "I've heard of that, but I never saw it done." "If you fellows will ride past me I'll rope you all," and Four Eyes indicated Snake, Yellin' Kid, Old Billee and Buck Tooth.
But let's watch." By this time the four cow punchers, counting Buck Tooth as one, for the Indian was a good herdsman, had lined themselves up about a hundred feet from where Four Eyes sat on his horse not the same black one he had ridden in, but another, of Bud's stock, that had been assigned him. "Ready?" asked Yellin' Kid. "All ready!
Every time I got homesick I'd say that river, an' then I'd see Hogan's Dairy Lunch fer Ladies an' Gents on the ol' Bowery an' hear the kid Mick Hogan yellin': 'Draw one in the dark! White wings let her flop! Pie-ho! an' it helped me a heap." Bill settled himself and stretched. "But what I really wanted to tell youse about," said he, "was somepin' that happened one o' these here cold nights.
"I think Del Pinzo an' his crowd have been waitin' for just such a chance as this. They'd ask nothin' better than t' have us rush 'em, an' then they'd have a good excuse for sayin', afterward, that they popped us off in self-defense." "Snake's right!" declared Yellin' Kid, modulating his voice somewhat. "We'd better play this hand cautious like."
At last, settlin' down as small as I could, I made up my mind I jest wouldn't look that way at all, face or no face, but give all my attention to watchin' for the rattler, an' yellin' fer the boys.
But four nights ago come last night yes, that's right, it were four nights ago 'bout three bells in the middle watch, while it were blowin' hard from the west'ard and we were runnin' under single-reefed topsails, with a very heavy sea chasin' of us, the night bein' dark and thick with rain, somebody comes rushin' out of the poop cabin yellin' like mad, and, afore anybody could stop him, sprang on to the lee rail, just the fore side of the main riggin', and takes a header overboard!"
Youth is ever thus, eager to guess instead of waiting for certainties. The older cowboys Yellin' Kid, Snake, Rolling Stone and those who made up the rescue party remained in silent contemplation of the approaching figure. "He rides doggoned funny," observed Snake. "Like a bag of oats," added Rolling Stone. "Looks like he'd fall off any minute."
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