Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/76

 they halted, tossed up their heads, and stared at me. I hardly believe they thought I was alive; perhaps they mistook me for the statue of “Liberty enlightening the World.” We stood there looking at each other, until Tom yelled, “Well, why don’t you do something? We haven’t had a bite to eat since breakfast.” Now, I knew no more than the man in the moon what to do; but just then one of the cows, one with awful threatening horns, began pawing up the mud, so I called back, “I think this big spotted one is cross!” “Cross nothing! She’s gentle as a lamb,” Tom answered. She’s an old cow, I thought, the mother of the other two. Then she must be the grandmother of these calves, and it would be rather disrespectful to pounce upon the old lady with this pole. So I just continued to “hold her with my glittering eye.” Again Tom roared, “She won’t hurt you, I tell you; she’s just scared and rattled!”

It did not seem to me that the grandmother was scared. She had now advanced several paces, and was not only throwing mud, but had lowered her head and was shaking her horns at me in a way quite disconcerting. That she was “rattled” seemed plausible; certainly her manners were not reposeful. Thinking I must do something, I pounded the road a little with my pole, throwing some mud myself. At this the enemy moved forward in solid phalanx, the younger cows now shaking their horns also; whereupon, forgetting my valorous ancestors of the Revolution, I drew a trifle nearer the rail-fence,