“‘This yere leapin’ comes first on the bill.  I ain’t been in the ring yet; the tumblin’ business is where I makes my deeboo.  I’ve got on a white clown soote with big red spots, an’ my face is all flour.  I’m as certain of my comin’ pop’larity as a wet dog.  I shore allows that when Jule an’ old Hickey observes my graceful agility an’ then hears me warble “Roll Jurdan, Roll,” I’ll make ’em hang their heads.

“‘The tumblin’ is about to begin; the band’s playin’, an’ all us athletes is ranged Injun file along a plank down which we’re to run.  I’m the last chicken on the roost.

“’Even unto this day it’s a subject of contention in circus cirkles as to where I hits that springboard.  Some claims I hits her too high up; an’ some says too low; for myse’f, I concedes I’m ignorant on the p’int.  I flies down the plank like a antelope!  I hears the snarl of the drums!  I jumps an’ strikes the springboard!

“’It’s at this juncture things goes queer.  To my wonder I don’t turn no flip-flap, but performs like a draw-shot in billiards.  I plants my moccasins on the springboard; an’ then instead of goin’ on an’ over a cayouse who’s standin’ thar awaitin’ sech events, I shoots back’ard about fifteen foot an’ lands in a ondistinguishable heap.  An’ as I strikes a plank it smashes a brace of my ribs.

“‘For a second I’m blurred in my intellects.  Then I recovers; an’ as I’m bein’ herded back into the dressin’ room by the fosterin’ hands of the ring master an’ my pard, the clown, over in the audience I hears Jule’s silvery laugh an’ her old pap allowin’ he’d give a hoss if I’d only broke my neck.  Also, I catches a remark of old Hickey; “Which that Boggs boy allers was a ediot!” says old Hickey.’”

CHAPTER XV.

Bowlegs and Major Ben.

“Which this yere Major Ben,” remarked the Old Cattleman, “taken in conjunction with his bosom pard, Billy Bowlaigs, frames up the only casooalty which gets inaug’rated in Wolfville.”

“What!” I interjected; “don’t you consider the divers killings,—­the death of the Stinging Lizard and the Dismissal of Silver Phil, to say nothing of the taking off of the Man from Red Dog—­don’t you, I say, consider such bloody matters casualties?”

“No, sir,” retorted my friend, emitting the while sundry stubborn puffs of smoke, “no, sir; I regyards them as results.  Tharfore, I reiterates that this yere Major Ben an’ Bowlaigs accomplishes between ’em the only troo casooalty whereof Wolfville has a record.”

At this he paused and surveyed me with an eye of challenge; after a bit, perceiving that I proposed no further contradiction, he went on: 

“This Billy Bowlaigs at first is a cub b’ar—­a black cub b’ar:  an’ when he grows up to manhood, so to speak, he’s as big, an’ mighty near as strong physical, as Dan Boggs.  Nacherally, however, Dan lays over Bowlaigs mental like a ace-full.