Old Yeller by Fred Gipson Page A

him!”
    We started off, with Little Arliss crowing at what a fine ride he was getting on the dragging hide. Sure enough, at the first sound of that rattling hide, old Jumper acted up. He snorted and tried to lunge to one side. But Mama yanked down on his bridle and said, “Jumper, you wretch!” I whacked him between the ears with a dead stick. With the two of us coming at him like that, it was more than Jumper wanted. He settled down and went to traveling as quiet as he generally pulled a plow, with just now and then bending his neck around to take a look at what he was dragging. You could tell he didn’t like it, but I guess he figured he’d best put up with it.
    Little Arliss never had a finer time than he did on that ride home. He enjoyed every long hour of it. And a part of the time, I don’t guess it was too rough on Old Yeller. The cowhide dragged smooth and even as long as we stayed in thesandy wash. When we left the wash and took out across the flats, it still didn’t look bad. Mama led Jumper in a long roundabout way, keeping as much as she could to the openings where the tall grass grew. The grass would bend down before the hide, making a soft cushion over which the hide slipped easily. But this was a rough country, and try as hard as she could, Mama couldn’t always dodge the rocky places. The hide slid over the rocks, the same as over the grass and sand, but it couldn’t do it without jolting the riders pretty much.
    Little Arliss would laugh when the hide raked along over the rocks and jolted him till his teeth rattled. He got as much fun out of that as the rest of the ride. But the jolting hurt Old Yeller till sometimes he couldn’t hold back his whinings.
    When Yeller’s whimperings told us he was hurting too bad, we’d have to stop and wait for him to rest up. At other times, we stopped to give him water. Once we got water out of a little spring that trickled down through the rocks. The next time was at Birdsong Creek.
    Mama’d pack water to him in my hat. He was too weak to get up and drink; so Mama wouldhold the water right under his nose and I’d lift him up off the pillows and hold him close enough that he could reach down and lap the water up with his tongue.
    Having to travel so far and so slow and with so many halts, it looked like we’d never get him home. But we finally made it just about the time it got dark enough for the stars to show.
    By then, my hurt leg was plenty stiff, stiff and numb. It was all swelled up and felt as dead as a chunk of wood. When I slid down off Jumper’s back, it wouldn’t hold me. I fell clear to the ground and lay in the dirt, too tired and hurt to get up.
    Mama made a big to-do about how weak and hurt I was, but I didn’t mind. We’d gone and brought Old Yeller home, and he was still alive. There by the starlight, I could see him licking Little Arliss’s face.
    Little Arliss was sound asleep.

TWELVE
    F or the next couple of weeks, Old Yeller and I had a rough time of it. I lay on the bed inside the cabin and Yeller lay on the cowhide in the dog run, and we both hurt so bad that we were wallowing and groaning and whimpering all the time. Sometimes I hurt so bad that I didn’t quite know what was happening. I’d hear grunts and groans and couldn’t tell if they were mine or Yeller’s. My leg had swelled up till it was about the size of a butter churn. I had such a wild hot fever that Mama nearly ran herself to death, packing fresh cold water from the spring, whichshe used to bathe me all over, trying to run my fever down.
    When she wasn’t packing water, she was out digging prickly-pear roots and hammering them to mush in a sack, then binding the mush to my leg for a poultice.
    We had lots of prickly pear growing close to the house, but they were the big tall ones and their roots were no good. The kind that make a good poultice are the smaller size. They don’t have much top, but lots of knotty roots, shaped sort of like sweet potatoes. That kind