if a bear comes arter 'em and chases 'em, and if I fall
astarn, he'll just snap up a plump little corn fed feller
like me in less than half no time. Cryin',' says I,
'though, will do no good. You must be up and doin', Sam,
or it's gone goose with you.'

"So a thought struck me. Father had always been a-talkin'
to me about the leadin' men, and makin' acquaintance with
the political big bugs when I growed up and havin' a
patron, and so on. Thinks I, I'll take the leadin' cow
for my patron. So I jist goes and cuts a long tough ash
saplin, and takes the little limbs off of it, and then
walks along side of Mooley, as meachin' as you please,
so she mightn't suspect nothin', and then grabs right
hold of her tail, and yelled and screamed like mad, and
wallopped away at her like any thing.

"Well, the way she cut dirt was cautionary; she cleared
stumps, ditches, windfalls and every thing, and made a
straight track of it for home as the crow flies. Oh, she
was a dipper: she fairly flow again, and if ever she
flagged, I laid it into her with the ash saplin, and away
we started agin, as if Old Nick himself was arter us.

"But afore I reached home, the rest of the cows came a
bellowin', and a roarin' and a-racin' like mad arter us,
and gained on us too, so as most to overtake us, jist as
I come to the bars of the cow yard, over went Mooler,
like a fox, brought me whap up agin 'em, which knocked
all the wind out of my lungs and the fire out of my eyes,