e are probably no worse teases on earth than the big boys who chase
the cow on the Western prairies. They had "a horse on the kid," and
the poor kid felt nightmare ridden indeed. If I were out with them,
someone would assume an anxious look and carefully scout around a bunch
of grass in the distance, explaining to the rest that there might be a
deer concealed there, and one could not be too careful when there were
wild beasts like that around. Then the giggling rascals would pass the
suspected spot with infinite caution, perhaps breaking into a gallop,
with frightened shrieks of "The deer! The deer!" while I tried to look
as if I liked it, and strove manfully to keep the brine of
mortification from rolling down my cheeks.

I didn't let my emotions take the form of words, because I had wit
enough to know that I could not put a better barrier between myself and
a real danger than those husky lads of the leather breeches and white
hats. For all that, I had a yearning to see one of them encounter the
deer at his worst. I did not wish anyone hurt, and was so confident of
their physical ability that I did not think anyone would be; but I felt
that such an incident would strengthen their understanding.

This thing came to pass, and, of all people, on my arch-enemy, Steve.
If I had had the arrangement of details, I could not have planned it
better. Because of my tender years, the light chores of the ranch fell
to my share. One day everyone was off, leaving me to chink up the
"bull-pen," or men's quarters, with mud, against the cold of
approaching winter. Steve had taken his eldest boy on a trip to pick
out some good wood.

Presently arrived the boy, hatless, running as fast as he could tear,
the breath whistling in his lungs. "Come _quick_!" was the message.
It seems the deer had followed the couple, and when the boy fooled with
his old playmate, the deer knocked him down and would have hurt him
badly, but that his father instantly jumped into the fray and grabbed
the animal by the horns, with the intention of twisting his head off.
The head was fastened on more firmly than Steve supposed. What he did
not take at all into account was that the buck was both larger and
stronger than he. Though raised on a bottle, Billy was by long odds
the largest deer I ever saw.

Steve got the surprise of his life. The battle was all against him.
The best he could hope to do was to hold his own until help arrived; so
he sent th