Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/271

 went on, "while I'm no hand to toot my own horn it looks to me like you ought to have seen that I was somebody out of the ordinary. I got a easy, careless way about me that shows pedigree and then these long, taperin' fingers and p'inted ears Say, git down out that buggy, it makes me mad to look at you!"

So it came about that Clarence Strunk, leading a saddle-horse and two pack-horses behind a four-wheeled vehicle, attempted to drive through the cañon after the cloudburst had passed, just a little bit sooner than would a person who had not been in Hopedale drinking heartily to his own health.

The water, though falling rapidly, was still running swift and nearly belly-deep when Mr. Clarence Strunk urged his horses into the stream.

In spite of the fact that the water was swishing around his ankles, and he had several narrow escapes from upset, he was half-way through the cañon and congratulating himself upon overcoming the cowardly impulse to wait until the creek subsided a little more, when he heard a faint hail.