That gal
don't want to see me now, all bloody and mussed up like this."

It was useless to attempt making a hero of Charley.

Billy the Buck

I fancy I assume an impregnable position in saying that real poetry is
truth, presented in its most vivid and concise form. If the statement
stands, I request that every line of English verse containing the words
"Timid deer," or referring in any way to a presumed gentle, trusting,
philanthropic disposition in the beast, be at once revised or
expurgated. I shall not except the works of William Shakespeare. When
the melancholy Jaques speaks of one of these ferocious animals, saying,
"The big round tears coursed one another down his innocent nose in
piteous chase," I believe Jaques lied; or, if he lied not, and the
phenomenon occurred as reported, that the tears were tears of rage
because the deer could not get at Jaques, and as an extension, if he
had gotten at Jaques, he would have given said Jaques some cold facts
to be contemplative about. After my experience, if I should see any
misguided person making friendly advances to one of these horned
demons, I should cry, "Whoa!" as Cassandra did to the wood horse of the
Greeks, and probably with the same result. They would not falter until
they had gathered bitter experience with their own hands.

Why? This is why. One day, when I was working on a Dakota ranch, the
boss, a person by the name of Steve, urged me to take an axe, go forth,
and chop a little wood, which I did.

The weather was ideal. A Dakota fall. Air vital with the mingled
pleasant touch of frost and sun, like ice-cream in hot coffee, and
still as silence itself. I had a good breakfast, was in excellent
health and spirits; the boss could by no means approach within a mile
unperceived, and everything pointed to a pleasant day. But, alas! as
the Copper-lined Killelu-bird of the Rockies sings, "Man's hopes rise
with the celerity and vigour of the hind leg of the mule, only to
descend with the velocity of a stout gentleman on a banana peel."

On reaching the grove of cottonwoods I sat down for a smoke and a
speculative view of things in general, having learned at my then early
age that philosophy is never of more value than when one should be
doing something else.

I heard a noise behind me, a peculiar noise, between a snort and a
violent bleat. Turning, I saw a buck deer, and, from the cord and bell
around his neck, recognised him as one Billy, t