rt o' snorted, as if he didn't know
right what he would be arter, and McTavish, he gits up, and turns right
round with his back to the critter; he got a bit of a round jacket on,
and he stoops down till his head came right atween his legs, kind o'
straddlin like, so that the bull could see nothing of him but his
t'other eend, and his head right under it, chin uppermost, with his big
black whiskers, lookin as fierce as all h-ll, and fiercer; well! the
bull he stawmped agin, and pawed, and bellowed, and I was in hopes, I
swon, that he would have hooked him; but just then McTavish, starts to
run, going along as I have told you, hind eend foremost--bo-oo went the
bull, a-boooo, and off he starts like a strick, with his tail stret on
eend, and his eyes starin and all the critters arter him, and then they
kind o' circled round--and all stood still and stared--and stawmped,
'till he got nigh to them, and then they all stricks off agin; and so
they went on--runnin and then standin still,--and so they went on the
hull of an hour, I'll be bound; and I lay there upon my back laughin
'till I was stiff and sore all over; and then came Waxskin and all
Archer, wrathy as h-ll and swearin'--Lord how they did swear!

"They'd been a slavin there through the darned thorns and briers, and
the old stinkin mud holes, and flushed a most almighty sight of cock,
where the brush was too thick to shoot them, and every one they flushed,
he came stret out into the open field, where Archer knew we should have
been, and where we should have killed a thunderin mess, and no mistake;
and they went on dam-min, and wonderin, and sweatin through the brush,
till they got out to the far eend, and there they had to make tracks
back to us through the bog meadow, under a brilin sun, and when they did
get back, the bull was jest a goin through the bars--and every d--d drop
o' the rum was drinked up; and the sun was settin, and the day's
shootin--that was spoiled!--and then McTavish tantalized them the worst
sort. But I did laugh to kill; it was the best I ever did see, was that
spree--Ha! ha! ha!"

And, as he finished, he burst out into his first horse laugh, in which I
chorused him most heartily, having in truth been in convulsions, between
the queerness of his lingo, and the absurdly grotesque attitudes into
which he threw himself, in imitating the persons concerning whom his
story ran. After this, jest succeeded jest! and story, story! 'till, in
good truth, t