Chapter XV: The Gander-Pulling

Under all the trees where horses had been hitched, the mountaineers were tightening girths, mending unsound bridles, and pulling down stirrups from the saddles across which they had been flung to be safe from fly-kicking hoofs.

Some men had switches tucked under their saddle-flaps. Others, less provident, swung on to their beasts, and, heavily elastic, trotted across to the brush to cut a "hickory" from a sourwood-tree.

Pete was testing the strength of a stout oak pole driven into the ground, across whose fork was lashed, like the cross-bar of a "T," a leaf-stripped sapling. To the tip of this rod the negro was tying the legs of a big, white goose, whose extended wings and pendant head betrayed compliance with inexorable law.

"Hit's a damn shame," Pete murmured, as he anointed the creature's neck and head with liberal smearings of lard. "Whar de fun o' pullin' on a ole daid t'ing lak dis? But Ah hope dey'll tink hit's great!" And he beat vigorously on a pan to attract the attention of all hearers.

"Gen'lemen. O-oh, gen'lemen!" he cried, at the top of his lungs. "Now fo' a great ole gander-pullin'! De only one we've had in dis settle-_ment_ fo' t'ree year. Every gen'leman as craves to enter dis gander-pullin' will kin'ly ride up here and _de_-posit a quarter 'f a dollar. Only twenty-five cen's fo' de priv'lege o' takin' a pull at dis yer goose,--warranted a tasty goose! One-half dis sum o' money goes to de gen'leman who succeeds in _re_-movin' de haid from dis fowl, an' also de goose hitself, which sho' do look lak good eatin'!"

Pete's old hat soon sagged with the coins that were tossed into it, while his keen eye noted each entry as surely as if he wrote the name in black and white. It would have been useless for anyone to try to enter the lists without paying the proper fee.

Two lines of excited onlookers served at once to define a lane, whose ultimate point was the gallows whereon hung the goose, and to rouse to excitement the horses, whose overworked spirits did not respond promptly to the sudden stimulus.

They cheered the aspirants with jovial condemnation.

"Show us what yo' ole plug c'n do, 'Gene."

"Sho', Alf, you-all ain' goin' to ride that po' critter!"

"He's powerful gaunted up, yo' war-horse, Bud."

"Mighty strength'nin' ploughin' is, but not stimmerlatin'!"

"High-strung animal, that clay-bank o' Pink's."

Pink's temper was in that state where he enjoyed hugely gibes at his friends' expense, but was in no mood to receive amiably jests directed against himself.

"Whar's you-all's horse?" he shouted, in exasperation, to one of his tormentors. "Ah reckon no one would len' you anythin' mo' vallyble 'n a billy-goat. Now dry up. Pete, start this thing."

He rode to the end of the passage where the horsemen were gathering. Alf Lance, Melissa's father, whose horses Bud and Pink were riding, scanned them both to make sure that they were not too drunk to be trusted with his animals.

Pete fussed about nervously.

"Which o' you gents will begin dis pullin'?" he called. "Now, sahs, come on."

Pink pushed his horse towards the edge of the crowd, but he was hailed with dissuasive cries.

"Aw, hold on, Pink."

"Don' be so bigoty."

"Who you-all think ye are?"

"Where's Bob Morgan?"

"Yes, Bob's the feller!"

"O-oh, Bob!"

It was their tribute to the Doctor, this giving precedence to his son, and Bob so understood it. It was, therefore, irritating to have Pink thrust forward his red face and look him over sneeringly.

"Aw, gwan," he cried, "lessee what you-all c'n do."

The bunch of horsemen fell to one side, and Bob started Gray Eagle from well back in the field near the deserted wagons. He passed the mounted men and thundered through the lines of standing howlers. The gray had been his master's coadjutor in so many situations of excitement and even peril, that the cheering mob did not provoke him unduly. He galloped, unswervingly, up to the hanging goose, though his ears were pricked forward, and he shuddered as the instinctive repulsion from death pulsed through him. Bob's outstretched hand grasped the long and slippery neck, while the inarticulate yell with which the Southern farmer calls his dogs and chases his cows and terrifies his enemies went up from the onlookers. Tightly he clutched the greasy thing, and tried to give a sharp twist that should break the vertebrae. But his hand slipped swiftly down to the flat head, which offered no hold for his grasp, the beak ripped through his fingers, and the sapling, which had bent and followed him as Gray Eagle dashed on, snapped back, waving triumphantly its unharmed burden.

"Hard lines, old man, but the fun lasts longer so," cried Wendell, as Bob pulled up beside him after circling the spectators.

"Who's that?" the New Yorker asked, as a lank country horse plunged down the lane, shied violently at the feathered horror, threw his rider into the crowd, and galloped with flapping stirrups over the field.

"'Gene Frady. He never can stay on anything. He's all right, dad," to the Doctor, who was moving towards the upper end. "See, he's chasing his horse now."

With a drunken whoop, Pink Pressley rushed his animal towards the prize; but his condition, combined with twitches and jerks of the bridle, and rakings of the spur, had acted upon his mount's usually stolid nerves, and half-way up the alley he whirled about and tore back, carrying his cursing rider far up the road before he calculated the probable results to himself of this outburst, and consented to return.

Bud Yarebrough was more fortunate. He leaned far forward and succeeded in getting a firm grasp of the neck, but he had guided his horse too close to the bird, and his jerk drew it directly over his face, blinding him with grease and feathers.

His plight was greeted with howls of derision, which fell into silence as John Wendell made the trial. His unpractised hand in some way pulled down the goose, and the rebound of the sapling plucked the booty out of his grasp, and flung it high above his head.

Tom Schuyler was equally unlucky.

Alf Lance forgot that he was left-handed until he was close upon his quarry, when he dropped his reins and pawed vaguely at the air as his horse carried him on.

Another yell announced Pink Pressley's return. Now his chastened steed bore him straight enough to the goal, but by that time Pink was too drunk to distinguish the goose he was after from the flock that swirled and dipped before his eyes, and he never touched a feather.

"Doctor, you-all'll have to show us how," said Alf Lance.

"Come on, Doctor."

"Yes, yo' the feller."

"Bob, give yo' father yo' horse and let him larn ye what's what."

"Oh, I hope he'll do it," cried Sydney. "He's capital at it!"

"Fo' the Lawd's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Morgan, rising to her feet in the carriage and steadying herself by an informal hand on Mrs. Carroll's shoulder. "Fo' the Lawd's sake, if that ain't Henry Morgan! Well, did you ever!" And her fat body trembled with pride and excitement.

Gray Eagle took his second turn with the same equanimity as if his own master were on his back. He galloped handsomely towards the goose; there was a quick snatch and a snap, and the old man turned short and came back, holding aloft his trophy.

"Wah, wah, wah!"

Yells, whistles, and cat-calls greeted his success. Sydney and Katrina and Mrs. Carroll clapped their hands, and the Doctor, folding in his handkerchief the somewhat dubious treasure, rode over to the apple-tree and presented it to his wife.

During the confusion attendant upon the harnessing of horses and mules, Bob, restoring 'Possum's saddle to the mule from which he had borrowed it, heard Pink Pressley's voice on the other side of the big oak by which he was working.

"Howdy, Mr. Baron," he was saying.

"How_dee_," responded von Rittenheim, with an accent that made Bob throw back his head and laugh silently. "You had bad fortune with your horse this afternoon."

"Correct. Damn pore horse. Some day Ah'll have a good horse o' mah own, not a ole borrowed plug. Ah'm goin' to be rich some day. You-all know how, eh? Say,"--he was wagging his head solemnly to and fro, disgustingly near von Rittenheim's face,--"Ah reckon you'd like to go into business with me now ye made a start at hit."

Bob remained behind his shield, hoping that Pressley would go away before von Rittenheim had the mortification of seeing him.

"Ah reckon you-all need money mahty bad," drawled the drunken voice. "A feller always does when he wants to get married, 'n hit's clear what yo' after with Miss Sydney."

Like bolts from heaven, two blows fell upon him simultaneously, and von Rittenheim and Bob faced each other over his fallen body.

"Leave him alone," said Bob, hoarsely. "He'll sleep it off."

Then he strolled over to his father.

"Dad, I suspect you'd better take a look at Pink Pressley under the big oak-tree. I've just given him a biff in the solar plexus, or mighty near it."