Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/161

D'RI AND I for a flatboat ferry. Our skipper, it turned out, had little knowledge of those waters. He had shortened sail, and said he was not afraid of the weather. The wind, out of the southeast, came harder as it drove us on. Before we knew it, the whole kit and boodle of us were in a devil of a shakeup there in the broad water. D'ri and I were down among the horses and near being trampled under in the roll. We tried to put about then, but the great gusts of wind made us lower sail and drop anchor in a hurry. Soon the horses were all in a tumble and one on top of the other. We had to jump from back to back to save ourselves. It was no pretty business, I can tell you, to get to the stairway. D'ri was stripped of a boot-leg, and I was cut in the chin by a front hoof, going ten feet or so to the upper deck. To the man who was never hit in the chin by a horse's hoof let me say there is no such remedy for a proud spirit. Bullets are much easier to put up with and keep a civil tongue in one's head. That lower deck was a kind of horses' hell. We had to let them alone. They got astraddle of one