Page:The romance of Runnibede (IA romanceofrunnibe00rudd).pdf/67

struggled and heaved and bumped together, and made a water upheaval, you’d think old Harry was riding on a tidal wave. But for one way, his luck was in, for his two bare legs slipped between two hairy bodies, one each side the same body, and to his grim astonishment, and the astonishment of all of us, he was sitting astride a black bullock with tremendous horns. But when the black bullock stopped drinking, and began fighting his way back through the erush, Ilarry’s legs kept getting in the way of horns that were not on the head of his mount. And as soon as the black brute found room enough he came out from the ruck at a run, then buck, unloaded old Harry beside a log, then turned round and bellowed vindictively at him. Laws! How Tom Merton rushed his horse on to that bullock and sent him spinning, big framed and all that he was! But old Harry, with just enough life left in him, had rolled under the log in time, and so saved himself.

That night, after tea, Ted and I had a lot to tell mother and big Mary Rumble about the watering of the travelling mob at Curlew Lagoon—a lot mere than I can remember now.