Page:On Our Selection.djvu/239

Rh perched on one of the round posts, nursing the steel and a long knife; Joe running hard from the barn with a plough-rein.

Dad was wondering which beast to kill, and expressed a preference for the heifer. Mother said, "No, kill the cow."

Dad inspected the cow again, and shook his head.

"Well, if you don't, she'll only die, if the winter's a hard one; then you'll have neither." That settled it. Dad took the rope from Joe, who arrived aglow with heat and excitement, and fixed a running noose on one end of it. Then—

"Hunt 'em round!" he cried.

Joe threw his hat at them, and chased them round and round the yard. Dad turned slowly in the centre, like a ring-master, his eye on the cow; a coil of rope was in his left hand, and with the right he measuredly swung the loop over and over his head for some time. At last the cow gave him a chance at her horns, and he let fly. The rope whizzed across the yard, caught little Bill round the neck, and brought him down off the post. Dad could hardly believe it. He first stared at Bill as he rolled in the yard, then at the cow. Mother wished to know if he wanted to kill the boy, and Joe giggled and, with a deal of courage, assured Dad it was "a fine shot." The cow and the heifer ran into a corner, and switched their tails, and raked skin and hair off each other with their horns.