grabbed open the door an' slipped in quick. It worked all right.
They heerd me, but hedn't been quick enough to ketch me in the light of
the door. Of course there was some shots, but I ducked too quick, an'
changed my position.

"Ladies an' gentlemen, thet there was some dool by night. An' I wasn't
often in the place where they shot. I was most wonderful patient, an'
jest waited until one of them darned ruffians would get so nervous he'd
hev to hunt me up. When mornin' come there they was all piled up on
the floor, all shot to pieces. I found the gurl. Purty! Say, she was
boo-tiful. We went down to the river, where she begun to bathe my
wounds. I'd collected a dozen more or so, an' the sight of tears in her
lovely eyes, an' my blood a-stainin' of her little hands, jest nat'rally
wakened a trembly spell in my heart. I seen she was took the same way,
an' thet settled it.

"We was comin' up from the river, an' I hed jest straddled my hoss, with
the gurl behind, when we run right into thet cutthroat gang thet was
doo about then. Bein' some handicapped, I couldn't drop more 'n one
gun-round of them, an' then I hed to slope. The whole gang follered
me, an' some miles out chased me over a ridge right into a big herd of
buffalo. Before I knowed what was what thet herd broke into a stampede,
with me in the middle. Purty soon the buffalo closed in tight. I knowed
I was in some peril then. But the gurl trusted me somethin' pitiful. I
seen again thet she hed fell in love with me. I could tell from the way
she hugged me an' yelled. Before long I was some put to it to keep my
hoss on his feet. Far as I could see was dusty, black, bobbin', shaggy
humps. A huge cloud of dust went along over our heads. The roar of
tramplin' hoofs was turrible. My hoss weakened, went down, an' was
carried along a leetle while I slipped off with the gurl on to the backs
of the buffalo.

"Ladies, I ain't denyin' that then Monty Price was some scairt. Fust
time in my life! But the trustin' face of thet boo-tiful gurl, as she
lay in my arms an' hugged me an' yelled, made my spirit leap like a
shootin' star. I just began to jump from buffalo to buffalo. I must hev
jumped a mile of them bobbin' backs before I come to open places. An'
here's where I performed the greatest stunts of my life. I hed on my
big spurs, an' I jest sit down an' rid an' spurred till thet pertickler
buffalo I was on got near another, an' then I'd flop over. Thusly I got
to the edge o