' the next street a big wagon loaded with lumber an' runnin'
towards me down the hill. The' wasn't no hosses hitched to it, an' the
tongue stuck straight out in front. It was comin' like a steam-engine,
an' like a flash I remembered Maggie on the other side o' the car. That
wagon would 'a' weighed six tons, an' any fool could see what would
happen when it struck that street car.

For a second--for just one second, which seemed to last a thousand
years--I was turned to stone. I could hear the crash; I could hear the
screams; I could feel the horrid scrunch as car, wagon, an' all ground
over poor little Maggie; and then everything cleared up, an' I could
think ninety times a minute.

I turned my rope loose an' backed ol' Mr. Barrel up on the sidewalk in
the wink of a hair trigger. I looked down at the hoss, an' he would
have weighed a full ton himself; but I knew that he wouldn't have sense
enough to brace himself when the jerk came. It was comical the way
thoughts kept flashin' through my head--everything I had done, an'
everything I might have done, an' a heap more beside; but the thing
that worried me most was the thought that a mighty good story was about
to happen, an' the chances were that I wouldn't be the one to do the
tellin' of it afterward. I can talk about it easy now, but I wasn't
BREATHIN' then.

On came the wagon, an' it looked as though nothin' under heaven could
stop it. A strange feelin' o' weakness swept over me for a minute,
and--and--darned if I didn't pray, right then. The pressure lifted like
a fog, an' I sat there as cool an' still as though I was Ivanhoe,
darin' the whole blame outfit to come at me in a bunch; an' I was some
pleased to notice that a little group had gathered to see the outcome.
My knees dug into the hoss's ribs as I circled the rope around my head,
an' then at just the right instant I gave the foreleg throw. Well, it
landed--everything landed. As soon as the noose caught the tip o' the
tongue I yanked back on the brewer until he must 'a' thought his lower
jaw had dissolved partnership.

The' never was any neater work--never. The noose tightened well out on
the tongue, an' when the strain came the wagon turned in toward the
sidewalk, runnin' in a big circle on the outside wheels. The jerk had
lifted ol' Uncle Brewer, who didn't have gumption enough to squat,
plumb out in the middle o' the street, an' just as the wagon climbed
the curb an' dove into the basement office of a Jew