Then Wind River shows his one tooth and rocks on his heels, hollerin' and laughin', and the sheep rises up and smites him on the hip and thigh so he flew after the Doctor like a grey-whiskered sky-rocket, with a ha-ha! cut in two in the middle. "Woosh!" says old Windy as he comes up. "Hi, there cooky! I'll beat you ashore!" He was a handy-witted old Orahanna, that Windy, and you didn't put the kybosh on him easy. So it went with all of us. That ram come out of no-where-at-all another night and patted me on the stummick so I pretty near fainted. I tried to twist his cussed head off his shoulders, but he'd knocked the wind out of me so it was like fightin' an army in a nightmare. I was glad when the boys come out and pried me loose. Oh, oh! How we hated that woolly, blaatin' fool of a sheep! [Illustration: "A ha ha! cut in two in the middle"] "Well," says Windy, "I'm layin' fur th' day he snaggles himself up with Foxey Bill. You're goin' to see a nice quiet sheep after that happens." [Illustration: "That woolly, blaatin' fool of a sheep"] The rest of us had lots of faith in Billy, but we couldn't see where he stood a show to win. "Shucks!" says Steve. "The sheep'll knock the bacon out of him. The Lord knows I don't want to see it, but that's what's got to happen. Poor Bill ain't onto his style of fightin' at all. You know how pigs make war--standin' side by side, tryin' to hook each other in the flank, gruntin' and circlin' around with little quick steps--how's that goin' to apply to this son-of-a-gun that hits you a welt like a domestic cannon and then chases himself off to the sky-line for another try?" [Illustration: "Chases himself off to the sky-line for another try"] "Well," cuts in the Doctor. "I ain't a-sayin' _how_--but Bill _does_ him, all the same--bet your life." "You talk feeble minded," says Steve. "Nobody'd more like to believe you than me, but the points ain't on the cards. It'll be just like that Braddock's campaign agin the Injuns. There goes the Britishers (that's Bill) amblin' gaily through the woods, dressed up in red and marchin' arm to arm, for fear some careless Injun would miss 'em, and there's the Injuns (that's that durned ram) off in the woods jumpin' up and down with pleasure and surprise. 'Oh, Jimmy!' hollers the Injun to his little boy. 'Run get grandpa, Towser, mama, and the baby--everybody's goin' to pick one of these and take it home--no Injun so poor but what he's entitled to at least one Englishman.'" "That's all right," says Windy. "But where's your Injun now?" "Well," says Steve, flabbergasted, "that's kind of true, too; he has vanished some." "I bet you money," says the Doctor, "that Bill does him." "I hate to rob the poor in mind," says Steve. "And yet I'd like to lose that bet--make it a month's wages?" "I'm for standin' by my friend," says the Doctor. "I'll bet you up to the first of January."