"I'll attend to that!'
"The hell you will!" said he, in that calm way of his. "Let me see. Your
house faces the north. These trees are on the section line.... The
schoolhouse is.... I have it, now. Sorry to cut in ahead of you;
but--get up, Susie--Winnie, go on!"
But I had Susie and Winnie by the bits.
"Vandemark," he said, and as he shouted this to make me hear I could
feel the authority I had grown to recognize in drill, "you forget
yourself! Let go those horses!"
"Not by a damned sight!"
I found myself swearing as if I were in the habit of it.
Now the man in any kind of rig with another holding his horses' bits is
in an embarrassing fix. He can't do anything so long as he remains in
the vehicle; and neither can his horses. He must carry the fight to the
other man, or be made a fool of.
Buck Gowdy was not a man to hesitate in such a case. He carried the
fight to me--and I was glad to see him coming. I had waited for this a
long time. I have no skill in describing fights, and I was too much
engaged in this to remember the details. How many blows were exchanged;
what sort of blows they were; how much damage they did until the last,
more than a cut lip on my part, I can not tell. Why no more damage was
done is clearer--we were both so wrapped up as to be unable to do much.
I only know that at the last, I had Gowdy down in the snow right by my
well-curb; and that without taking time to make any plan, I wrapped the
well-rope around him so as to make it necessary for him to take a little
time in getting loose; I wrote him a receipt for the team and rig, which
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