THE BEST PULLING TEAM IN THE STATE
Leading the cow, and aided by "Tex" McGonnigle, who boasted that he had
a heart as big as the country he lived in and was willing to prove it by
helping him with the locoed horses, Wallie made fair progress as far as
the gate in the last wire fence, where "Tex" had to leave him.
"'Tain't fur now," said that person, passing over the rope with a knot
in the end with which he had belaboured the horses he had driven ahead
of him. "Mog along stiddy and you'd ought to make it by sundown."
"I think I'll lead 'em," Wallie remarked.
"Locoed horses won't lead--you've got to drive 'em."
Nevertheless, on the chance that "Tex" might not know everything, Wallie
tried it after his helper had galloped in another direction.
"The best pulling team in the state!" the auctioneer had declared, and
truthfully. Wallie had a notion they could have moved the Capitol
building if they had laid back on it as they did their halters when he
tried to lead them.
There was nothing for it but to tie their heads together and drive them
as Tex had done, but with even less success. They missed either Tex's
voluble and spicy encouragement or the experienced hand which laid on
the rope end, but the chief difficulty seemed to be that they were of
different minds as to the direction which they should take, and since
the cow was of still another, Wallie was confronted with a difficult
situation.
Dragging the mild-eyed Jersey, which had developed an incredible
obstinacy with the cessation of Tex's Comanche yells behind her, Wallie
applied the rope he had inherited, with the best imitation he could give
of the performance, but futilely.
The cow and the horses pulling in opposite directions went around and
around in a circle until the trampled earth looked as if it had been the
site of a cider-press or a circus.
After they had milled for twenty minutes without advancing a step Wallie
lost patience.
"Oh, sugar!" he cried. "This is certainly very, very annoying!"
The cow was as much an obstacle to the continuance of their journey as
the horses, since, bawling at intervals, she planted her feet and
allowed her neck to be stretched until Wallie was fearful that it would
separate, leaving only her gory head in the halter.
With this unpleasant possibility confronting him, Wallie shrank from
putting too much strain upon it with the result that the cow learned
that if she bawled loud enough and laid back hard enough, he would ease
up on the rope by which he was dragging her.
Wallie had been taught from infancy that kindness was the proper method
of conquering animals, therefore he addressed the cow in tones of
saccharine sweetness and with a persuasive manner that would have
charmed a bird off a tree.
"Bossy! Bossy! Good bossy!" he cajoled her.
Immune to flattery, she looked at him with an expression which reminded
him of a servant girl who knows she is giving notice at an inopportune
time. Then she planted her feet still deeper in the sand and bawled at
him.
"Darn it!" he cried, finally, in his exasperation.
As he sat helpless in his dilemma, wondering what to do next, an idea
occurred to him which was so clever and feasible that he lost no time in
executing it.
If he tied the cow to the stirrup of his saddle and she showed no
disposition to escape, then he could walk and drive the work-horses
ahead, returning for his saddle-horse and the cow! This, to be sure, was
a slow process, but it was an improvement over spending the night going
around in a circle.
Wallie tied the cow's rope to the stirrup and both animals stood as if
they were nailed to the spot while he ran after the work-horses, who had
wandered in another direction. His boots, he noted, were not adapted to
walking as they pinched in the toes and instep. He could not stop for
such a small matter at this critical moment, however, so he continued to
run until he overtook the horses and started them homeward.
Turning to look at the cow and his saddle-horse, he saw them walking
briskly, side by side, like soul-mates who understood each other
perfectly, in the opposite direction from which he wanted them to go. He
left the horses and ran after the cow, shouting:
"Whoa--can't you?"
He reasoned swiftly that the Jersey was the nucleus of a herd which
would one day run up into the thousands, and he must get her at all
hazards.
"Whoa! Bossy--wait for me!" he pleaded as at top speed he went after
her.
"Good bossy! Good bossy!" His quavering voice was pathetic.
At the sound of his voice the horse stopped, turned its head, and looked
at him. The cow stopped also.
Intensely relieved, Wallie dropped to a walk, congratulating himself
that the livery horse chanced to be so well trained and obedient. As he
approached, the cow stepped forward that she might look under the
horse's neck and watch her pursuer. Both animals stood like statues,
regarding him intently. When within fifty feet Wallie said in a
conciliatory tone to show them that he stood ready to forgive them in
spite of the inconvenience to which they had put him:
"Nice horsey! Good bossy!"
Quite as if it were a signal, "Nice horsey and good bossy" started at a
trot which quickly left Wallie far behind them.
Wallie ran until he felt that his overtaxed lungs were bursting. His
boots were killing him, his shin bones ached, and his feet at every
step sank to the ankles in the loose sand. It was like running through a
bog. He pursued until he was bent double with the effort and his legs
grew numb. The perspiration streamed from under his stylish derby, his
stock wilted, and his clothing was as wet as if it had been raining.
When his legs would carry him not one step farther he stopped and looked
after the cow and horse--who were still doing perfect team-work,
trotting side by side as evenly as if they had been harnessed together.
They stopped instantly when he stopped, and, as before, the horse turned
its head to look back at him while the cow peered under its neck at
Wallie.
Hope revived again when they showed no disposition to move, and after he
had panted awhile, Wallie thought that by feigning indifference and
concealing his real purpose he might approach them. To this end, he
whistled with so much breath as his chase had left him, tossed pebbles
inconsequently, and sauntered toward the pair as if he had all the day
before him.
The subterfuge seemed to be succeeding, and he was once more within
fifty feet of them when they whirled about simultaneously and started at
the same lively trot, leaving Wallie far behind them.
A humane consideration for animals had been inculcated in Wallie from
childhood by Aunt Mary, but now he felt such a yearning to inflict pain
upon the cow and the livery horse that it would have shocked that lady
if she could have read his thoughts as he chased them. He visualized
the two of them tied to a tree while he laid on the rope-end, and the
picture afforded him intense satisfaction.
Exhausted, and with his heart pounding under his silk shirt-bosom,
Wallie stopped at last because he had to. Immediately the horse and cow
stopped also. While he gasped, a fresh manoeuvre occurred to Wallie.
Perhaps if he made a circle, gradually getting closer, by a quick dash
he could catch the bridle reins.
As he circled, the gaze of the horse and cow followed him with the
keenest interest. Finally he was close enough to see the placid look of
benevolence with which his cow was regarding him and success seemed
about to reward his efforts. The horse, too, had half closed its eyes by
the time he was ready for his coup, as if it had lost all interest in
eluding him.
"Nice horsey! Good bossy!" Wallie murmured, reassuringly.
For the third time he was within fifty feet of them, and while he was
debating as to whether to make his dash or try to get a little closer,
the pair, seeming to recognize fifty feet as the danger zone, threw up
their heads and tails and went off at a gallop.
Grinding his teeth in a way that could not but have been detrimental to
the enamel, Wallie stood looking after them. A profane word never had
passed his lips since he had had his mouth washed out with castile soap
for saying "devil." But now with deliberate, appalling abandon, and the
emphasis of a man who had cursed from his cradle, he yelled after the
fleeing fiends incarnate:
"Go to hell--damn you!"
Instantly shocked and ashamed of himself, Wallie instinctively looked
skyward, half expecting to see an outraged Jehovah ready to heave a
thunderbolt down on him, though he felt that the Almighty in justice
should recognize the provocation, and forgive him.
Weary, with blistered heels and drooping shoulders, Wallie plodded after
them while time and again they repeated the performance until it would
have worn down a bloodhound to have followed the tracks made by Wallie
and the renegades.
The sun set and the colours faded, yet Wallie with a dogged tenacity he
had not known was in him trudged back and forth, around and around, in
pursuit of the runaways, buoyed up chiefly by the hope that if he could
catch them he might soon be wealthy enough to afford to kill them.
It was nearly dusk, and a night in the open seemed before him when the
pair stopped and commenced feeding toward him. Whether they had become
hungry or the sport had palled on them were questions Wallie could not
answer. It was enough that they waited like two lambs for him to walk up
and catch them.
He was so tired that when he got himself in the saddle with the cow
ambling along meekly at his stirrup, he found himself feeling grateful
to them instead of vindictive. The locoed horses he decided to leave
until morning.
By the time he had reached his homestead and fallen out of the saddle,
he had forgotten that he had sworn to tie them up and "whale" them. On
the contrary, he was wondering if milking were a difficult process and
if he could accomplish it, for he could not find it in his heart to let
a dumb brute suffer. He remembered hearing that cows should be milked
regularly, and while his Jersey had goaded him to blasphemy he knew that
he would not be able to sleep if she was in pain through his negligence.
Picketing the horse as Pinkey had taught him, he put the cow on a rope
also. Then he set about the performance which had looked so simple when
he had seen others engage in it.
Among his accoutrements was a flashlight, and with this and a lard can
Wallie stood for a moment speculating as to whether the cow had any
preference as to the side she was milked on. He could not see that it
would make any material difference, so he sat down on his heel on the
side nearest and turned his flashlight on the spot where he wished to
operate. Placing his lard can on the ground where he could throw a
stream into it conveniently, he used his free hand for that purpose.
To his surprise, nothing happened--except that the cow stopped chewing
her cud and looked at him inquiringly. He persisted, but uselessly. Was
anything wrong with his system, he wondered? He thought not, since he
was milking exactly as he had seen the hired man milk on a farm where he
had once spent a month in his childhood.
He varied his method, making gentle experiments, but at the end of ten
minutes the lard can was still empty and the cow was growing restless.
For that he could not blame her. His hand ached and his foot seemed
about to break off at the ankle from sitting on it.
Wallie felt chagrined when he reflected that although he was a graduate
of Haverford College and was bringing all his intelligence to bear upon
it he was still unable to do what any hired man with an inch of forehead
could accomplish with no apparent effort.
Perhaps there was some trick about it--perhaps it _did_ make a
difference which side a cow was milked on. Wallie walked around and
turned the spot-light on the other side of his Jersey.
The outlook, he fancied, seemed more promising.
He sat down on his heel and started in energetically.
It did make a difference which side one milked on--there was no doubt
about it. The instant he touched her she lifted her foot and with an aim
which was not only deadly and unerring but remarkable, considering that
she could not see her target, planted it in the pit of Wallie's stomach
with such force that the muffled thud of it sounded like someone beating
a carpet. The kick knocked the breath out of him, and as he lay on his
back on a clump of cactus he was sure that he was bleeding internally
and probably dying.
Wallie finally got to his feet painfully and with both hands on his
stomach looked at the cow, who was again chewing tranquilly. There was
murder in Wallie's eyes as he yelled at her:
"Curse you! I could cut your heart out!"
Then he crept up the path to his tent and dropped down on his pneumatic
mattress, doubting if he ever would rise from it. As he lay there,
supperless, with his clothes on, every muscle in his body aching, to say
nothing of the sensation in his stomach, it seemed incredible that he
could be the same person who had started off so blithely in the morning.
The series of misfortunes which had befallen him overwhelmed him. He had
purchased a cow which not only gave no milk but had a vicious
disposition. He had paid two prices for a pair of locoed horses that did
their pulling backward. He had made himself a laughing stock to the
entire country and seemed destined to play the clown somehow whenever
Helene Spenceley was in the vicinity. His ears grew red to the rims as
he thought of it.
But she _had_ resented Canby's dishonesty for him--_that_ was something;
and Wallie was in a mood to be grateful for anything.
The cow grunted as she lay down to her slumbers--Wallie ground his teeth
as he heard her. A coyote yapped on a ridge forlornly and the horse on
picket coughed and snorted while Wallie, staring at the stars through
the entrance, massaged his injury and ruminated.
Suddenly he sat up on his patent air mattress and shook his fist at the
universe:
"Canby nor nobody else shall down me! I'm going to make good somehow, or
fertilize Wyoming as old Appel told me. I'll show 'em!"
After that he felt better; so much better that he fell asleep
immediately, and even the activities of two field-mice, who pulled and
snipped at his hair with their sharp teeth in the interests of a nest
they were building, only disturbed without awakening him.