minglin' of dust and dim figgers goin' thirty mile an hour after a
disappearin' automobeel.

That was all we seen for the moment. About three o'clock the first
straggler came limpin' in, his wings hangin', his mouth open, his eyes
glazed with the heat. By sundown fourteen had returned. All the rest had
disappeared utter; we never seen 'em again. I reckon they just naturally
run themselves into a sunstroke and died on the road.

It takes a long time to learn a chicken a thing, but a heap longer to
unlearn him. After that two or three of these yere automobeels went by
every day, all a-blowin' of their horns. And every time them fourteen
Honk-honks of mine took along after 'em, just as I'd taught 'em to do,
layin' to get to their corn when they caught up. No more of 'em died,
but that fourteen did get into elegant trainin'. After a while they got
plumb to enjoyin' it. When you come right down to it, a chicken don't
have many amusements and relaxations in this life. Searchin' for worms,
chasin' grasshoppers, and wallerin' in the dust is about the limits of
joys for chickens.

It was sure a fine sight to see 'em after they got well into the game.
About nine o'clock every mornin' they would saunter down to the rise of
the road where they would wait patient until a machine came along. Then
it would warm your heart to see the enthusiasm of them. With exultant
cackles of joy they'd trail in, reachin' out like quarter-horses, their
wings half spread out, their eyes beamin' with delight. At the lower
turn they'd quit. Then, after talkin' it over excited-like for a few
minutes, they'd calm down and wait for another.

After a few months of this sort of trainin' they got purty good at it. I
had one two-year-old rooster that made fifty-four mile an hour behind
one of those sixty-horsepower Panhandles. When cars didn't come along
often enough, they'd all turn out and chase jack-rabbits. They wasn't
much fun at that. After a short, brief sprint the rabbit would crouch
down plumb terrified, while the Honk-honks pulled off triumphal dances
around his shrinkin' form.

Our ranch got to be purty well known them days among automobeelists. The
strength of their cars was horsepower, of course, but the speed of them
they got to ratin' by chickenpower. Some of them used to come way up
from Los Angeles just to try out a new car along our road with the
Honk-honks for pacemakers. We charged them a little somethin' and then,
too, we opened up th