ger. He made up his mind to
go and have it out, even if there was a whole agricultural show of prize
and honourable-mention fighting-cocks in Page's yard. He got down from
the wood-heap and started off across the ploughed field, his head down,
his elbows out, and his thick awkward legs prodding away at the furrows
behind for all they were worth.

"I wanted to go down badly and see the fight, and barrack for Bill. But
I daren't, because I'd been coming up the road late the night before
with my brother Joe, and there was about three panels of turkeys
roosting along on the top rail of Page's front fence; and we brushed 'em
with a bough, and they got up such a blessed gobbling fuss about it that
Page came out in his shirt and saw us running away; and I knew he was
laying for us with a bullock whip. Besides, there was friction between
the two families on account of a thoroughbred bull that Page borrowed
and wouldn't lend to us, and that got into our paddock on account of me
mending a panel in the party fence, and carelessly leaving the top
rail down after sundown while our cows was moving round there in the
saplings.

"So there was too much friction for me to go down, but I climbed a tree
as near the fence as I could and watched. Bill reckoned he'd found that
rooster at last. The white rooster wouldn't come down from the stack,
so Bill went up to him, and they fought there till they tumbled down the
other side, and I couldn't see any more. Wasn't I wild? I'd have given
my dog to have seen the rest of the fight. I went down to the far side
of Page's fence and climbed a tree there, but, of course, I couldn't
see anything, so I came home the back way. Just as I got home Page came
round to the front and sung out, 'Insoid there!' And me and Jim went
under the house like snakes and looked out round a pile. But Page was
all right--he had a broad grin on his face, and Bill safe under his arm.
He put Bill down on the ground very carefully, and says he to the old
folks:

"'Yer rooster knocked the stuffin' out of my rooster, but I bear no
malice. 'Twas a grand foight.'

"And then the old man and Page had a yarn, and got pretty friendly after
that. And Bill didn't seem to bother about any more ventriloquism; but
the white rooster spent a lot of time looking for that other rooster.
Perhaps he thought he'd have better luck with him. But Page was on the
look-out all the time to get a rooster that would lick ours. He did
nothing else f