g

Under all the trees where horses had been hitched, the mountaineers
were tightening girths, mending unsound bridles, and pulling down
stirrups from the saddles across which they had been flung to be safe
from fly-kicking hoofs.

Some men had switches tucked under their saddle-flaps. Others, less
provident, swung on to their beasts, and, heavily elastic, trotted
across to the brush to cut a "hickory" from a sourwood-tree.

Pete was testing the strength of a stout oak pole driven into the
ground, across whose fork was lashed, like the cross-bar of a "T," a
leaf-stripped sapling. To the tip of this rod the negro was tying the
legs of a big, white goose, whose extended wings and pendant head
betrayed compliance with inexorable law.

"Hit's a damn shame," Pete murmured, as he anointed the creature's neck
and head with liberal smearings of lard. "Whar de fun o' pullin' on a
ole daid t'ing lak dis? But Ah hope dey'll tink hit's great!" And he
beat vigorously on a pan to attract the attention of all hearers.

"Gen'lemen. O-oh, gen'lemen!" he cried, at the top of his lungs. "Now
fo' a great ole gander-pullin'! De only one we've had in dis settle-_ment_
fo' t'ree year. Every gen'leman as craves to enter dis gander-pullin'
will kin'ly ride up here and _de_-posit a quarter 'f a dollar. Only
twenty-five cen's fo' de priv'lege o' takin' a pull at dis yer
goose,--warranted a tasty goose! One-half dis sum o' money goes to de
gen'leman who succeeds in _re_-movin' de haid from dis fowl, an' also
de goose hitself, which sho' do look lak good eatin'!"

Pete's old hat soon sagged with the coins that were tossed into it,
while his keen eye noted each entry as surely as if he wrote the name
in black and white. It would have been useless for anyone to try to
enter the lists without paying the proper fee.

Two lines of excited onlookers served at once to define a lane, whose
ultimate point was the gallows whereon hung the goose, and to rouse to
excitement the horses, whose overworked spirits did not respond
promptly to the sudden stimulus.

They cheered the aspirants with jovial condemnation.

"Show us what yo' ole plug c'n do, 'Gene."

"Sho', Alf, you-all ain' goin' to ride that po' critter!"

"He's powerful gaunted up, yo' war-horse, Bud."

"Mighty strength'nin' ploughin' is, but not stimmerlatin'!"

"High-strung animal, that clay-bank o' Pink's."

Pink's temper was in that state where he enjoyed hugely gibes at his
frie