loose and
useless, so Buddy stopped long enough to pull the apron off and throw
it beside Sister before he crawled under the canvas flap and walked
down the spokes of a rear wheel. He did not mean to get in the way of
the wild cow, but he did want action for his restless legs. He thought
that if he went away from the wagon and the herd and played while
they were catching the wild cow, it would be just the same as if he took
a nap. Mother hadn't thought of it, or she might have suggested it.
So Buddy went away from the wagon and down into a shallow dry
wash where the wild cow would not come, and played. The first thing
he saw was a scorpion-nasty old bug that will bite hard-and he threw
rocks at it until it scuttled under a ledge out of sight. The next thing he
saw that interested him at all was a horned toad; a hawn-toe, he called it,
after Ezra's manner of speaking. Ezra had caught a hawntoe for him a
few days ago, but it had mysteriously disappeared out of the wagon.
Buddy did not connect his mother's lack of enthusiasm with the
disappearance. Her sympathy with his loss had seemed to him real, and
he wanted another, fully believing that in this also mother would be
pleased. So he took after this particular HAWN-toe, that crawled into
various hiding places only to be spied and routed out with small rocks
and a sharp stick.
The dry wash remained shallow, and after a while Buddy, still in hot
pursuit of the horned toad, emerged upon the level where the herd had
passed. The wagon was nowhere in sight, but this did not disturb
Buddy. He was not lost. He knew perfectly that the brown cloud on his
narrowed horizon was the dust over the herd, and that the wagon was
just behind, because the wind that day was blowing from the southwest,
and also because the oxen did not walk as fast as the herd. In the
distance he saw the "Drag" moving lazily along after the dust-cloud,
with barefooted niggers driving the laggard cattle and singing dolefully
as they walked. Emphatically Buddy was not lost.
He wanted that particular horned toad, however, and he kept after it
until he had it safe in his two hands.
It happened that when he pounced at last upon the toad he disturbed
with his presence a colony of red ants on moving day. The close ranks
of them, coming and going in a straight line, caught and held Buddy's
attention to the exclusion of everything else--save the horned toad he
had been at such pains to acquire. He tucked the toad inside his
underwaist and ignored its wriggling against his flesh while he squatted
in the hot sunshine and watched the ants, his mind one great question.
Where were they going, and what were they carrying, and why were
they all in such a hurry?
Buddy had to know. To himself he called trailherd--but father's cattle
did not carry white lumps of stuff on their heads, and furthermore, they
all walked together in the same direction; whereas the ant herd traveled
both ways. Buddy made sure of this, and then started off, following
what he had decided was the real trail of the ants. Most children would
have stirred them up with a stick; Buddy let them alone so that he could
see what they were doing all by themselves.
The ants led him to a tiny hole with a finely pulverized rim just at the
edge of a sprawly cactus. This last Buddy carefully avoided, for even at
four years old he had long ago learned the sting of cactus thorns. A
rattlesnake buzzed warning when he backed away and the shock to
Buddy's nerves roused within him the fighting spirit. Rattlesnakes he
knew also, as the common enemy of men and cattle. Once a steer had
been bitten on the nose and his head had swollen up so he couldn't eat.
Buddy did not want that to happen to HIM.
He made sure that the horned toad was safe, chose a rock as large as he
could lift and heave from him, and threw it at the buzzing, gray coil. He
did not wait to see what happened, but picked up another rock, a terrific
buzzing sounding stridently from the coil. He threw another and
another with all the force of his healthy little muscles. For a four-year-
old he aimed well; several of the rocks landed on the coil.
The snake wriggled feebly from under the rocks and tried to crawl
away and hide, its rattles clicking listlessly. Buddy had another rock in
his hands and in
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