Old Yeller Read Online Free PDF Page A

fight.
    He started screaming at me. He tried to get down where he could pick up a rock.
    But Mama held him. “Hush, now, baby,” she said. “Travis isn’t going to hurt your dog. He just doesn’t want him to scare off the bulls.”
    Well, it took some talking, but she finally got Little Arliss’s mind off hitting me with a rock. I climbed back up on the fence. I told Mama that I was betting on Chongo. She said she was betting her money on Roany because he had two fighting horns. We sat there and watched the bulls get ready to fight and talked and laughedand had ourselves a real good time. We never once thought about being in any danger.
    When we learned different, it was nearly too late.
    Suddenly, Chongo quit pawing the dirt and flung his tail into the air.
    “Look out!” I shouted. “Here it comes.”
    Sure enough, Chongo charged, pounding the hardpan with his feet and roaring his mightiest. And here came Roany to meet him, charging with his head low and his tail high in the air.
    I let out an excited yell. They met head on, with a loud crash of horns and a jar so solid that it seemed like I could feel it clear up there on the fence. Roany went down. I yelled louder, thinking Chongo was winning.
    A second later, though, Roany was back on his feet and charging through the cloud of dust their hoofs had churned up. He caught Chongo broadside. He slammed his sharp horns up to the hilt in the shoulder of the mustard-colored bull. He drove against him so fast and hard that Chongo couldn’t wheel away. All he could do was barely keep on his feet by giving ground.
    And here they came, straight for our rail fence.
    “Land sakes!” Mama cried suddenly and leaped from the fence, dragging Little Arliss down after her.
    But I was too excited about the fight. I didn’t see the danger in time. I was still astride the top rail when the struggling bulls crashed through the fence, splintering the posts and rails, and toppling me to the ground almost under them.
    I lunged to my feet, wild with scare, and got knocked flat on my face in the dirt.
    I sure thought I was a goner. The roaring of the bulls was right in my ears. The hot, reeking scent of their blood was in my nose. The bone-crashing weight of their hoofs was stomping all around and over me, churning up such a fog of dust that I couldn’t see a thing.
    Then suddenly Mama had me by the hand and was dragging me out from under, yelling in a scared voice: “Run, Travis, run!”
    Well, she didn’t have to keep hollering at me. I was running as fast as I ever hoped to run. And with her running faster and dragging me along by the hand, we scooted through the open cabin door just about a quick breath before Roany slammed Chongo against it.
    They hit so hard that the whole cabin shook. I saw great big chunks of dried-mud chinking fall from between the logs. There for a second, I thought Chongo was coming through that door, right on top of us. But turned broadside like he was, he was too big to be shoved through such a small opening. Then a second later, he got off Roany’s horns somehow and wheeled on him. Here they went, then, down alongside the cabin wall, roaring and stomping and slamming their heels against the logs.
    I looked at Mama and Little Arliss. Mama’s face was white as a bed sheet. For once, Little Arliss was so scared that he couldn’t scream. Suddenly, I wasn’t scared anymore. I was just plain mad.
    I reached for a braided rawhide whip that hung in a coil on a wooden peg driven between the logs.
    That scared Mama still worse. “Oh, no, Travis,” she cried. “Don’t go out there!”
    “They’re fixing to tear down the house, Mama,” I said.
    “But they might run over you,” Mama argued.
    The bulls crashed into the cabin again. Theygrunted and strained and roared. Their horns and hoofs clattered against the logs.
    I turned and headed for the door. Looked to me like they’d kill us all if they ever broke through those log walls.
    Mama came running to