you're going quick!"



CHAPTER VI. What Happened to Andy

With the sun shining comfortably upon his back, and with a
cigarette between his lips, Andy sat upon his horse and watched
in silent glee while the irate Happy Family scurried here and
there behind the band, swinging their ropes down upon the woolly
backs, and searching their vocabularies for new and terrible
epithets. Andy smiled broadly as a colorful phrase now and then
boomed across the coulee in that clear, snappy atmosphere, which
carries sounds so far. He did not expect to do much smiling upon
his own account, that day, and he was therefore grateful for the
opportunity to behold the spectacle before him.

There was Slim, for instance, unwillingly careening down hill
toward home, because, in his zeal to slap an old ewe smartly with
his rope, he drove her unexpectedly under his horse, and so
created a momentary panic that came near standing both horse and
rider upon their heads. And there was Big Medicine whistling
until he was purple, while the herder, with a single gesture,
held the dog motionless, though a dozen sheep broke back from the
band and climbed a slope so steep that Big Medicine was compelled
to go after them afoot, and turn them with stones and profane
objurgations.

It was very funny--when one could sit at ease upon the hilltop
and smoke a cigarette while others risked apoplexy and their