Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan "Outlaw" and Other StoriesBarnes, Will C. (Will Croft)
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Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan "Outlaw" and Other Stories
Barnes, Will C. (Will Croft)
Horses -- Fiction; Western stories
Say, Pa, you know that quilt mother let me bring along, the one she said
you and she had when you first got married? Well, do you s'pose she'd
care if it was tore some? You see, on the way out the burro ran along a
barb wire fence and tore it, the quilt I mean. Lots of the stuffing came
out, but it don't show if you turn the tore place down.
This morning I woke up most froze, 'cause Billy crowded me clear off the
bed and out on to the ground. It's sure great to sleep out of doors and
see the stars and things. We put a hair rope in the foot of the bed last
night. Gee, but Jack jumped high when his bare feet hit it. He thought
it was a tarantula.
My, I wish we could stay here a year.
Lovingly,
DICK.
P. S. The little red ants got into our condensed milk and spoiled it;
leastways there's so many ants we can't separate the ants from the
milk. Billy left the hole in the top of the can open.
Camp Roosevelt, September 9th.
_Dear Pa_: You know Billy's dog Spot? Well, Billy said there was a
wildcat about camp, 'cause he saw the tracks. So I went down to a house
below on the creek and borrowed a steel trap they had. It was a big one
with sharp teeth on the jaws.
I wanted to set it on the ground, but Billy he says, "No, sir; set it on
the log acrost the creek, 'cause the cat would walk on the log and
couldn't help getting caught.
Besides, he said if we set it on the log and fastened it, when the
wildcat got caught he'd fall off into the creek and get drownded and
then we wouldn't have to kill him. Billy says that's the way trappers
catch mushrats, so they can't eat their feet off, when they get caught,
and get away.
Well, sir, we set the trap and tied Spot up so he wouldn't get into it.
In the night we heard the awfulest racket ever was and the biggest
splashing going on in the water. It even woke Billy up, and that's going
some, as Uncle Tom says.
It was 'most daylight and I sat up in bed, and there in the water was
something making a dreadful fuss. Billy he looks at it a minute and
says: "Why, it's Spot. Who let him loose?" Then we all jumped up, and
sure enough there was poor old Spot in the trap by one front-foot. The
chain to the trap was just long enough so he didn't drown, but was
hanging in the water by one leg.
Billy, it being his dog, crawled out on the log, unfastened the chain
and tried to pull Spot up. Some way he lost his balance and fell into
the creek right on top of the dog. Billy was real mad 'cause me and Jack
laughed so hard we couldn't help him a bit, Spot was pretty mad too, for
he grabbed Billy's leg in his teeth and tore a big piece out of
them--out of Billy's pajamas I mean.
Then Billy let go of the chain, and Spot climbed out of the water on to
the bank and tried to run off with the trap. Billy waded ashore too, and
we just laid down on the ground and hollered like real wild Indians.
Billy he said it wasn't any laughing matter and to come and help him get
Spot out of the trap.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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