AN hour after the bull-fight was over, Billy and Stubby could have been seen running first down one street, then down another, then through an alley, and lastly through the suburbs, leaving a cloud of dust behind them. They were running away from their master and his men who were trying to drive them back to the farm, but Billy and Stubby decided they did not want to return since all their friends, the bulls, but Little Duke whose life Billy had saved, had been killed.
They kept running until they were sure they could not be overtaken and then they stopped for breath and to decide where they wanted to go next. While nibbling the leaves from a bush, Billy, chancing to look up, saw straight ahead of him, looming up above trees and housetops, a high mountain out of which a column of smoke was curling like a black plume against the clear, blue sky.
“Look! Stubby, see what a big bon-fire there is on that mountain.”
“That isn’t a bon-fire,” said Stubby. “That is a volcano and its name is Popocatapetl. It sounds as if they were saying, poke-a-cat-with-a-paddle. I expect someone at sometime poked a cat with a paddle on that mountain and that is how it got its name, something after the manner of the Indians who give their children the name of the first thing the mother sees after they are born. I suppose the chiefs Blackhawk and Whitehorse got theirs in that way, as for Mud-in-the-face, some one must have thrown mud in the mother’s face at the critical moment.”
“Oh Stubby! You are too funny for anything. Where did you learn so much?”
“Oh! from listening to what the people were saying round me when I was out with my master.”
“You are a very observing dog and it would be a good thing if more people followed your example, then they would learn a great deal even if they never went to school.”
“How far do you suppose it is to that volcano?” asked Stubby.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I have given up guessing distances in this locality or in any mountainous country. That reminds me, did you ever hear the story of the joke on the Englishman who came to Colorado Springs and started to walk to the mountains he saw back of the hotel, thinking he could reach them and return before breakfast? I know you have for every one has.”
“Go ahead and tell it. I want to hear it.”
“These mountains proved to be over a hundred miles away, though they looked only five. So the next day when he went for a walk, coming to a little stream, that one could easily step over, he instead sat down and commenced taking off his shoes and stockings to the surprise of his friend who was with him who asked what he was doing.”
“I was fooled on your distances yesterday, but I won’t be to-day. This may look like a narrow stream, but if I try to step over, it will broaden out and prove to be a river, so I’m getting ready to wade across.”
This story made Stubby roll over on his back and fairly howl with mirth, not only because it was funny but because he had heard it told a hundred times and no two people had told it in the same way, and he wanted to hear how Billy would tell it.
The cunning Stubby took good care not to let Billy know that he had ever heard the story before, for good friends as they were, Billy might not like to be made fun of, besides his horns were sharp.
Stubby’s rolls and laughter were cut short by hearing a great clatter of horses’ hoofs on the hard road behind them.
“Hurry and hide, Billy. It must be a party of Mexicans racing on their way home from the Bull-fight.”
Stubby was right. They were Mexican cow-boys out on a lark. When they saw Billy’s head sticking above the bushes, one said in broken Spanish, “Now for some fun,” at the same time unfastening his lasso from the pummel on his saddle where it always hung and with a twirling tongue, uttered this cry “Cha-r-r-r-ah!” He swung the lasso three times round his head and as he did so the loop widened and lengthened until with a hissing sound it descended, encircling Billy’s neck and the next second he was jerked over the bush he was hiding behind and dragged at a fast run after the cow-boy who was spurring his pony to catch up with those who were ahead.
“Well! Carlos, what have you there?” called one of the boys, when he saw him dragging Billy behind him.
“I’ve got a dandy billy-goat. Now you fellows see what you can lasso and when we get back to the ranch we will raffle off what we catch or cook them for supper.”
“Good for you Carlos. That will be sport. There, I see something now I’m going to lasso,” meaning Stubby, who was following after Billy as fast as he could, for he would have followed Billy into the jaws of death, if need be.
Poor Stubby was very much surprised to feel a rope tighten around his neck and the next minute to feel himself lifted from the ground to the saddle before the cow-boy where he was held as they galloped on in their mad race toward the ranch where the cow-boys lived.
It is astonishing what some cow-boys can do with a lasso and how expert they may become in its use.
Presently, one of the boys spied a big turkey-buzzard sitting on top of a cactus-plant and with a whoop like an Indian, he was after it.
Before Mr. Buzzard had time to spread his wings and fly, he felt something hot twist around his neck, and the last thing he heard in this world was a merry laugh go up from the cow-boys at the idea of lassoing instead of shooting birds.
The cow-boy was going to throw his buzzard away but the others told him to bring it along as every one was to show, when he got back, what he had caught with his lasso.
Soon a terrible squealing was heard just ahead where one of the cow-boys had ridden, and when the others caught up to him they found he had succeeded in lassoing a brown and sandy-colored pig.
“Good for you Jake. Now we will have some roast pork and goat chops for supper and we will throw the bones to the turkey-buzzard.”
They did not know then that the big buzzard’s neck was broken.
They were now so near the ranch, it began to look as though some of the boys would fail to find anything to lasso, and they had agreed that those who had not succeeded in getting anything by the time they reached the ranch should clean and cook whatever had been caught.
“Well, I’ll be switched if I’ll do that,” said a great, tall cow-boy. “I’ll find something or die.”
As he said this, his eyes detected a gray something sneaking away behind some rocks, so he gave chase, not knowing what it was going to be. When this gray object heard his pony’s hoofs on the stone, it got frightened and left its hiding place behind a great boulder and took to its heels. Whizz! went the lasso, but instead of catching the wolf, for that is what it was, it coiled around the boulder, and the wolf had several leaps and strides the advantage. His failure to catch the wolf the first time, only made the cow-boy the more determined to have it at all costs in the end, and then the chase began: Over the rocks, round clumps of cacti, across ditches, the cow-boy steadily gaining, until with one long, mighty sweep of his arm the lasso stretched out and fell over the gray wolf’s head and he was captured.
Then like Billy, he was made to trot along behind the cow-boy’s pony until they came into the corral at the ranch. Once there, the cow-boys threw their saddles and bridles up on pegs in the stable and turned their ponies loose in the corral with a bunch of alfalfa to feed on. And now for the fun of seeing the boys, who failed to lasso anything, clean and cook the pig and goat. A coin was tossed to see which should be killed first. The head stood for the goat and the tail for the pig. The coin was flipped and up came tail so it was poor piggy’s fate to be killed first.
While two of the boys went to get a big iron kettle to boil water to scald him with, so they could scrape the bristles off, the others thought they would have some fun teasing Billy, but little did they suspect that their goat was the same goat they had seen that afternoon at the Bull-fight, clear the entire ring of horses, riders and toreadors, or they would not have been so anxious to tease him.
Billy bleated to Stubby to stay near him as he was going to watch his chance to jump the wall of the corral and make his escape before they had time to kill him and cut him up into goat chops.
“I am going to appear very gentle until they take this lasso off my neck and then we will see ‘Who is who and what is what.’”
Stubby barked back “All right, I will watch you and if you get into a fight, I will help you by biting the legs of whoever bothers you.”
“Say, Sam, that is too nice a looking goat to cut up into chops. I say we keep him and turn him loose with our goats on the range. Come here Mr. Billy and I will take the lasso off your neck.” He walked up to Billy and slipped the lasso off, giving his whiskers a parting pull. That settled it. Billy’s docility disappeared in a minute and before the cow-boy had taken a step he felt something sticking into him as if he had sat down on two darning needles and these needles were pushing farther and farther into him and urging him along at a fast trot until he felt a sudden boost and he found himself sitting on top of the corral wall, while the black goat landed on the other side followed by a little stubby-tailed yellow dog and both disappeared down a deep ravine and were lost sight of, and what is more, no one followed them or tried to bring them back.
