Old Yeller Read Online Free PDF

grab me by the arm. “Call the dog!” she said. “Put the dog after them!”
    Well, that was a real good idea. I was half aggravated with myself because I hadn’t thought of it. Here was a chance for the old yeller dog to pay back for all the trouble he’d made around the place.
    I stuck my head out the door. The bulls had fought away from the house. Now they were busy tearing down more of the yard fence.
    I ducked out and around the corner. I ran through the dog run toward the back of the house, calling, “Here, Yeller! Here, Yeller! Get ’em, boy! Sic ’em!”
    Old Yeller was back there, all right. But he didn’t come and he didn’t sic ’em. He took one look at me running toward him with that bullwhip in my hand and knew I’d come to kill him. He tucked his tail and lit out in a yelling run for the woods.
    If there had been any way I could have done it, right then is when I would have killed him.
    But there wasn’t time to mess with a fool dog. I had to do something about those bulls. They were wrecking the place, and I had to stop it. Papa had left me to look after things while he was gone, and I wasn’t about to let two mad bulls tear up everything we had.
    I ran up to the bulls and went to work on them with the whip. It was a heavy sixteen-footer and I’d practiced with it a lot. I could crack that rawhide popper louder than a gunshot. I could cut a branch as thick as my little finger off a green mesquite with it.
    But I couldn’t stop those bulls from fighting. They were too mad. They were hurting too much already; I might as well have been spitting on them. I yelled and whipped them till I gave clear out. Still they went right on with their roaring bloody battle.
    I guess they would have kept on fighting till they leveled the house to the ground if it hadn’t been for a freak accident.
    We had a heavy two-wheeled Mexican cart that Papa used for hauling wood and hay. Ithappened to be standing out in front of the house, right where the ground broke away in a sharp slant toward the spring and creek.
    It had just come to me that I could get my gun and shoot the bulls when Chongo crowded Roany up against the cart. He ran that long single horn clear under Roany’s belly. Now he gave such a big heave that he lifted Roany’s feet clear off the ground and rolled him in the air. A second later, Roany landed flat on his back inside the bed of that dump cart, with all four feet sticking up.
    I thought his weight would break the cart to pieces, but I was wrong. The cart was stronger than I’d thought. All the bull’s weight did was tilt it so that the wheels started rolling. And away the cart went down the hill, carrying Roany with it.
    When that happened, Chongo was suddenly the silliest-looking bull you ever saw. He stood with his tail up and his head high, staring after the runaway cart. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what he’d done with the roan bull.
    The rolling cart rattled and banged and careened its way down the slope till it was right beside the spring. There, one wheel struck a big boulder, bouncing that side of the cart so highthat it turned over and skidded to a stop. The roan bull spilled right into the spring. Water flew in all directions.
    Roany got his feet under him. He scrambled up out of the hole. But I guess that cart ride and sudden wetting had taken all the fight out of him. Anyhow, he headed for the timber, running with his tail tucked. Water streamed down out of his hair, leaving a dark wet trail in the dry dust to show which way he’d gone.
    Chongo saw Roany then. He snorted and went after him. But when he got to the cart, he slid to a sudden stop. The cart, lying on its side now, still had that top wheel spinning around and around. Chongo had never seen anything like that. He stood and stared at the spinning wheel. He couldn’t understand it. He lifted his nose up close to smell it. Finally he reached out a long tongue to lick and taste it.
    That was a bad mistake. I