"Stand back, Ezra! We're not going to be caught in that
terrible trap. They're piling over the bank ahead of us. Get
away from the leaders. I am going to shoot."

Buddy crawled up a little higher on the blankets behind the
seat, and saw mother steady herself and aim the rifle
straight at Crumpy. There was the familiar, deafening roar,
the acrid smell of black powder smoke, and Crumpy went down
loosely, his nose rooting the trampled ground for a space
before the gun belched black smoke again and Crumpy's yoke-
mate pitched forward. The wagon stopped so abruptly that
Buddy sprawled helplessly on his back like an overturned
beetle.

He saw mother stand looking down at the wheelers, that backed
and twisted their necks under their yokes. Her lips were set
firmly together, and her eyes were bright with purple hollows
beneath. She held the rifle for a moment, then set the butt
of it on the "jockey box" just in front of the dashboard.
The wheelers, helpless between the weight of the wagon behind
and the dead oxen in front, might twist their necks off but
they could do no damage.

"Unyoke the wheelers, Ezra, and let the poor creatures have
their chance at the water," she cried sharply, and Ezra,
dodging the horns of the frantic brutes, made shift to obey.

Fairly on the bank of the sluggish stream with its flood-worn
channel and its treacherous patches of quicksand, the wagon
thus halted by the sheer nerve and quick-thinking of mother