While he was still laughing, there was a shot from the ridge
toward which they were running; the sharp, vicious crack of a
rifle. The Happy Family heard the whistling hum of the bullet,
singing low over their heads; quite low indeed; altogether too
low to be funny. And they had squandered all their ammunition on
the prairie sod, to hurry a band of sheep that flatly refused to
hurry anywhere except under one another's odorous, perspiring
bodies.
From the edge of the coulee the rifle spoke again. A tiny geyser
of dust, spurting up from the ground ten feet to one side of Cal
Emmett, showed them all where the bullet struck.
"Get outa range, everybody!" yelled Weary, and set the example by
tilting his rowels against Glory's smooth hide, and heading
eastward. "I like to be accommodating, all right, but I draw the
line on standing around for a target while my neighbors practise
shooting."
The Happy Family, having no other recourse, therefore retreated
in haste toward the eastern skyline. Bullets followed them,
overtook them as the shooter raised his sights for the increasing
distance, and whined harmlessly over their heads. All save one.
CHAPTER XIV. Happy Jack
Big Medicine, Irish and Pink, racing almost abreast, heard a
scream behind them and pulled up their horses with short,
stiff-legged plunges.
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