th
his eatin'. You're just in time to see the end of the second round.
Bill's _goin'_ to lick him, but cuss me if I see _how_. He can't get
_at_ that blaatin', skippin' mess of wickedness. He don't understand
at all. If the sheep would give him one fair hack, he'd show
him--Look! Oh, Lordy! There he goes again! _Damn_ that sheep!"

It was an awful sight for Billy's friends to witness. I'll never tell
you how many times he went rollin' down the hill, only to come back as
game and useless as a rooster fightin' his reflection in a lookin'
glass. He'd chase after the sheep, gruntin' fierce, but pshaw! the
critter'd simply trot right away from him, wigglin' that insultin' tail
in his face. Old Billy's tail was coiled as tight as a watch-spring
with rage.

"He'll _do_ him," says the Doctor. "He sure _will_! Now you wait!"

"I am waitin'," says Steve, at the end of the twentieth round.
"Waitin' and waitin'. The only play that I see Billy makin' is for the
sheep to break his neck buntin' him. You hand me that rifle. I'll now
bet the crowd there's a dead sheep here in five seconds by the watch.
I can't stand this."

But we wouldn't let him cut in. Fair play is fair play.

"Boys," says Wind River soft, "Bill has laid his ropes--I see it in his
eye!"

"G'wan!" says Steve. "You see it in your own eye!"

"Well, you watch," says Windy. "Bill and me has been pretty well
acquainted ever since that day he called me a liar--look at him now!"

Sure enough. Bill was nosin' his barrel away from the house. I
couldn't see the point exactly, but took it on faith.

He was knocked galley-west and crooked three times before he moved the
thing a rod, but whatever he had in his mind, he calmly went on with it
as soon as he got up.

[Illustration: "He was knocked galley-west"]

"Oh, thunder!" says the Doctor. "See him now! Billy, you're an old
fool! You'll get butted plumb into the crik, next pass!" For Bill had
pushed the barrel to within five foot of the edge of the creek. And
when he heard the Doctor talk, I'll take my oath, that pig looked up
and smiled.

[Illustration: "That pig looked up and smiled"]

"He's got him now!" says Wind River. "He's got him now, for all my
next year's salary! I see it in his face!"

And Windy was so dead sure he impressed the rest of us. So there's
silence, whilst old Foxey Bill is chewin' away in the barrel, and the
ram is comin' over the grass--t-r-rmt, t-r-rrmt--as ha