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Old Yeller

By Fred Gipson

Chapter Eight

THE man's name was Burn Sanderson. He was a young

man who rode a good horse and was mighty nice and

polite about taking his hat off to Mama when he dis-

mounted in front of our cabin. He told Mama who he

was. He said he was a newcomer to Salt Licks. He said

that he'd come from down San Antonio way with a little

bunch of cattle that he was grazing over in the Devil's

River country. He said he couldn't afford to hire riders,

so he'd brought along a couple of dogs to help him herd

his cattle. One of these dogs, the best one, had dis-

appeared. He'd inquired around about it at Salt Licks,

and Bud Searcy had told him that we had the dog.

  "A big yeller dog?" Mama asked, looking sober and

worried.

  "Yessum," the man said, then added with a grin. "And

the worse egg sucker and camp robber you ever laid

eyes on. Steal you blind, that old devil will; but there

was never a better cow dog born."

  Mama turned to me. "Son, call Old Yeller," she said.

  I stood frozen in my tracks. I was so full of panic that

1 couldn't move or think.

  "Go on, Son," Mama urged "I think he and Little

Arliss must be playing down about the creek some"

where."

  "But Mama!" I gasped. "We can't do without Old

Yeller. He's-"

  "Travis!"

  Mama's voice was too sharp. I knew I was whipped.

I turned and went toward the creek, so mad at Bud

Searcy that I couldn't see straight. Why couldn't he

keep his blabber mouth shut?

  "Come on up to the house," I told Little Arliss.

  I guess the way I said it let him know that some-

thing real bad was happening. He didn't argue or stick

out his tongue or anything. He just got out of the water

and followed me back to the house and embarrassed

Mama and the young man nearly to death because he

came packing his clothes in one hand instead of wearing

them.

  I guess Bum Sanderson had gotten an idea of how

much we thought of Old Yeller, or maybe Mama had

told some things about the dog while I was gone to the

creek. Anyhow, he acted uncomfortable about taking

the dog off. "Now, Mrs. Coates," he said to Mama,

"your man is gone, and you and the boys don't have

much protection here. Bad as I need that old dog, I

can make out without him until your man comes.

  But Mama shook her head.

  "No, Mr. Sanderson," she said. "He's your dog; and

the longer we keep him, the harder it'll be for us to

give him up. Take him along. I can make the boys un-

derstand."

  The man tied his rope around Old Yeller's neck and

mounted his horse. That's when Little Arliss caught

onto what was happening. He threw a wall-eyed fit. He

screamed and he hollered. He grabbed up a bunch of

rocks and went to throwing them at Burn Sanderson.

One hit Sanderson's horse in the flank. The horse

bogged his head and went to pitching and bawling and

grunting. This excited Old Yeller. He chased after the

horse, baying him at the top of his voice. And what

with Mama running after Little Arliss, hollering for him

to shut up and quit throwing those rocks, it was alto-

gether the biggest and loudest commotion that had

taken place around our cabin for a good long while.

  When Burn Sanderson finished riding the pitch out

of his scared horse, he hollered at Old Yeller. He told

him he'd better hush up that racket before he got his

brains beat out. Then he rode back toward us, wearing

a wide grin.

  His grin got wider as he saw how Mama and I were

holding Little Arliss. We each had him by one wrist

and were holding him clear off the ground. He couldn't

get at any more rocks to throw that way, but it sure

didn't keep him from dancing up and down in the air

and screaming.

  "Turn him loose," Sanderson said with a big laugh.

"He's not going to throw any more rocks at me.

  He swung down from his saddle. He came and got

Little Arliss and loved him up till he hushed screaming.

Then he said: "Look, boy, do you really want that thiev-

ing old dog?"

  He held Little Arliss off and stared him straight in the

eyes, waiting for Arliss to answer. Little Arliss stared

straight back at him and didn't say a word.

  "Well, do you?" he insisted.

  Finally, Little Arliss nodded, then tucked his chin

and looked away.

  "All right," Burn Sanderson said. "We'll make a trade.

Just between you and me. I'll let you keep the old rascal,

but you've got to do something for me.

  He waited till Little Arliss finally got up the nerve

to ask what, then went on: "Well, it's like this. I've

hung around over there in that cow camp, eating my

own cookin, till I'm so starved out, I don't hardly throw

a shadow. Now, if you could talk your mama into feed-

ing me a real jam-up meal of woman-cooked grub, I

think it would be worth at least a one-eared yeller dog.

Don't you?"

  I didn't wait to hear any more. I ran off. I was so full

of relief that I was about to pop. I knew that if I didn't

get out of sight in a hurry, this Burn Sanderson was

going to catch me crying.

  Mama cooked the best dinner that day I ever ate. We

had roast venison and fried catfish and stewed squirrel

and blackeyed peas and cornbread and flour gravy and

butter and wild honey and hog-plum jelly and fresh

buttermilk. I ate till it seemed like my eyeballs would

pop out of my head, and still didn't make anything like

the showing that Burn Sanderson made. He was a slim

man, not nearly as big as Papa, and I never could figure

out where he was putting all that grub. But long before

he finally sighed and shook his head at the last of the

squirrel stew, I was certain of one thing: he sure

wouldn't have any trouble throwing a shadow on the

ground for the rest of that day. A good, black shadow.

  After dinner, he sat around for a while, talking to me

and Mama and making Little Arliss some toy horses out

of dried cornstalks. Then he said his thank-yous to

Mama and told me to come with him. I followed with

him while he led his horse down to the spring for water.

I remembered how Papa had led me away from the

house like this the day he left and knew by that that

Burn Sanderson had something he wanted to talk to me

about.

  At the spring he slipped the bits out of his horse's

mouth to let him drink, then turned to me.

  "Now, boy", he said, "I didn't want to tell your mama

this. I didn't want to worry her. But there's a plague of

hydrophobia making the rounds, and I want you to be

on the lookout for it."

  I felt a scare run through me. I didn't know much

about hydrophobia, but after what Bud Searcy had

told about his uncle that died, chained to a tree, I knew

it was something bad. I stared at Burn Sanderson and

didn't say anything.

  "And there's no mistake about it," he said. "I've done

shot two wolves, a fox, and one skunk that had it. And

over at Salt Licks, a woman had to kill a bunch of house-

cats that her younguns had been playing with. She

wasn't sure, but she couldn't afford to take any chances.

And you can't either."

  "But how will I know what to shoot and what not to?"

I wanted to know.

  "Well, you can't hardly tell at first," he said. "Not

until they have already gone to foaming at the mouth

and are reeling with the blind staggers. Any time you

see a critter acting that way, you know for sure. But you

watch for others that aren't that far along. You take

a pet cat. If he takes to spitting and fighting at you for

no reason, you shoot him. Same with a dog. He'll get

mad at nothing and want to bite you. Take a fox or a

wildcat. You know they'll run from you; when they

  At the spring, he slipped the bits out of his horse's

mouth to let him drink, then turned to me.

  "Now, boy," he said, "I didn't want to tell your mama

this. I didn't want to worry her. But there's a plague of

hydrophobia making the rounds, and I want you to be

on the lookout for it."

  I felt a scare run through me. I didn't know much

about hydrophobia, but after what Bud Searcy had

told about his uncle that died, chained to a tree, I knew

it was something bad. I stared at Burn Sanderson and

didn't say anything.

  "And there's no mistake about it," he said. "I've done

shot two wolves, a fox, and one skunk that had it. And

over at Salt Licks, a woman had to kill a bunch of house-

cats that her younguns had been playing with. She

wasn't sure, but she couldn't afford to take any chances.

And you can't, either."

  "But how will I know what to shoot and what not to?"

I wanted to know.

  "Well, you can't hardly tell at first," he said. "Not

until they have already gone to foaming at the mouth

and are reeling with the blind staggers. Any time you

see a critter acting that wa'~, you know for sure. But you

watch for others that aren't that far along. You take

a pet cat. If he takes to spitting and fighting at you for

no reason, you shoot him. Same with a dog. He'll get

mad at nothing and want to bite you. Take a fox or a

wildcat. You know they'll run from you; when they

don't run, and try to make fight at you, shoot `em. Shoot

anything that acts unnatural, and don't fool around

about it. It's too late after they've already bitten or

scratched you.

  Talk like that made my heart jump up in my throat

till I could hardly get my breath. I looked down at the

ground and went to kicking around some rocks.

  "You're not scared, are you, boy? I'm only telling

you because I know your papa left you in charge of

things. I know you can handle whatever comes up. I'm

just telling you to watch close and not let anything-

anything-get to you or your folks with hydrophobia.

Think you can do it?"

  I swallowed. "I can do it," I told him. "I'm not

scared."

  The sternness left Burn Sanderson's face. He put a

hand on my shoulder, lust as Papa had the day he left.

  "Good boy," he said. That's the way a man talks."

  Then he gripped my shoulder real tight, mounted his

horse and rode off through the brush. And I was so

scared and mixed up about the danger of hydrophobia

that it was clear into the next day before I even thought

about thanking him for giving us Old Yeller.

Chapter Nine

A BOY, before he really grows up, is pretty much like a

wild animal. He can get the wits scared clear out of him

today and by tomorrow have forgotten all about it.

  At least, that~s the way it was with me. I was plenty

scared of the hydrophobia plague that Burn Sanderson

told me about. I could hardly sleep that night. I kept

picturing in my mind mad dogs and mad wolves reel-

ing about with the blind staggers, drooling slobbers and

snapping and biting at everything in sight. Maybe biting

Mama and Little Arliss, so that they got the sickness

and went mad, too. I lay in bed and shuddered and

shivered and dreamed all sorts of nightmare happenings.

  Then, the next day, I went to rounding up and mark-

ing hogs and forgot all about the plague.

Our hogs ran loose on the range in those days, the

same as our cattle. We fenced them out of the fields,

but never into a pasture; we had no pastures. We never

fed them, unless maybe it was a little corn that we threw

to them during a bad spell in the winter. The rest of the

time, they rustled for themselves.

  They slept out and ate out. In the summertime, they

slept in the cool places around the water holes, some-

times in the water. In the winter, they could always tell

at least a day ahead of time when a blizzard was on the

way; then they'd gang up and pack tons of leaves and

dry grass and sticks into some dense thicket or cave.

They'd pile all this into a huge bed and sleep on until

the cold spell blew over.

  They ranged all over the hills and down into the

canyons. In season, they fed on acorns, berries, wild

plums, prickly-pear apples, grass, weeds, and bulb

plants which they rooted out of the ground. They espe-

cially liked the wild black persimmons that the Mexicans

called chapotes.

  Sometimes, too, they'd eat a newborn calf if the

mama cow couldn't keep them horned away. Or a baby

fawn that the doe had left hidden in the tall grass.

Once, in a real dry time, Papa and I saw an old sow

standing belly deep in a drying up pothole of water,

catching and eating perch that were trapped in there

and couldn't get away.

  Most of these meat eaters were old hogs, however.

  Starvation, during some bad drought or extra cold

winter had forced them to eat anything they could get

hold of. Papa said they generally started out by feeding

on the carcass of some deer or cow that had died, then

going from there to catching' and killing live meat. He

told a tale about how one old range hog had caught

him when he was a baby and his folks got there just

barely in time to save him.

  It was that sort of thing, I guess, that always made

Mama so afraid of wild hogs. The least little old biting

shoat could make her take cover. She didn't like it a

bit when I started out to catch and mark all the pigs

that our sows had raised that year. She knew we had

it to do, else we couldn't tell our hogs from those of the

neighbors. But she didn't like the idea of my doing it

alone.

  "But I'm not working hogs alone, Mama," I pointed

out. "I've got Old Yeller, and Burn Sanderson says he's

a real good hog dog."

  "That doesn't mean a thing," Mama said. "All hog

dogs are good ones. A good one is the only kind that can

work hogs and live. But the best dog in the world won't

keep you from getting cut all to pieces if you ever make

a slip."

  Well, Mama was right. I'd worked with Papa enough

to know that any time you messed with a wild hog, you

were asking for trouble. Let him alone, and he'll gen-

erally snort and run from you on sight, the same as a

deer. But once you corner him, he's the most dangerous

animal that ever lived in Texas. Catch a squealing pig

out of the bunch, and you've got a battle on your hands.

All of them will turn on you at one time and here they'll

come, roaring and popping their teeth, cutting high and

fast with gleaming white tushes that they keep whetted

to the sharpness of knife points. And there's no bluff to

them, either. They mean business. They'll kill you if

they can get to you; and if you're not fast footed and

don't keep a close watch, they'll get to you.

  They had to be that way to live in a country where

the wolves, bobcats, panther, and bear were always

after them, trying for a bait of fresh hog meat. And it

was because of this that nearly all hog owners usually

left four or five old barrows, or `bar' hogs," as we called

them, to run with each bunch of sows. The bar' hogs

weren't any more vicious than the boars, but they'd

hang with the sows and help them protect the pigs and

shoats, when generally the boars pulled off to range

alone.

  I knew all this about range hogs, and plenty more;

yet I still wasn't bothered about the job facing me. In

fact, I sort of looked forward to it. Working wild hogs

was always exciting and generally proved to be a lot

of fun.

  I guess the main reason I felt this way was because

Papa and I had figured out a quick and nearly fool-proof

way of doing it. We could catch most of the pigs we

needed to mark and castrate without ever getting in

reach of the old hogs. It took a good hog dog to pull off

the trick; but the way Burn Sanderson talked about Old

Yeller, I was willing to bet that he was that good.

  He was, too. He caught on right away.

  We located our first bunch of hogs at a seep spring

at the head of a shallow dry wash that led back toward

Birdsong Creek. There were seven sows, two long-

tushed old bar' hogs, and fourteen small shoats.

  They'd come there to drink and to wallow around in

the potholes of soft cool mud.

  They caught wind of us about the same time I saw

them. The old hogs threw up their snouts and said

"Woo-oof!" Then they all tore out for the hills, running

through the rocks and brush almost as swiftly and

silently as deer.

  "Head `em, Yeller," I hollered. "Go get `em, boy!"

  But it was a waste of words. Old Yeller was done

gone.

  He streaked down the slant, crossed the draw, and

had the tail-end pig caught by the hind leg before the

others knew he was after them.

  The pig set up a loud squeal. Instantly, all the old

hogs wheeled. They came at Old Yeller with their

bristles up, roaring and popping their teeth. Yeller held

onto his pig until I thought for a second they had him.

Then he let go and whirled away, running toward me,

but running slow. Slow enough that the old hogs kept

chasing him, thinking every second that they were going

to catch him the next.

  When they finally saw that they couldn't, the old

hogs stopped and formed a tight circle. They faced

outward around the ring, their rumps to the center,

where all the squealing pigs were gathered. That way,

they were ready to battle anything that wanted to jump

on them. That's the way they were used to fighting bear

and panther off from their young, and that's the way

they aimed to fight us off.

  But we were too smart, Old Yeller and I. We knew

better than to try to break into that tight ring of threat-

ening tushes. Anyhow, we didn't need to. All we needed

was just to move the hogs along to where we wanted

them, and Old Yeller already knew how to do this.

  Back he went, right up into their faces, where he

pestered them with yelling bays and false rushes till

they couldn't stand it. With an angry roar, one of the

barrows broke the ring to charge him. Instantly, all the

others charged, too.

  They were right on Old Yeller again. They were lust

about to get him. Just let them get a few inches closer,

and one of them would slam a four-inch tush into his

soft belly.

  The thing was, Old Yeller never would let them gain

that last few inches on him. They cut and slashed at

him from behind and both sides, yet he never was quite

there. Always he was just a little bit beyond their reach,

yet still so close that they couldn't help thinking that

the next try was sure to get him.

  It was a blood-chilling game Old Yeller played with

the hogs, but one that you could see he enjoyed by the

way he went at it. Give him time, and he'd take that

bunch of angry hogs clear down out of the hills and

into the pens at home if that's where I wanted them-

never driving them, just leading them along.

  But that's where Papa and I had other hog hunters

out-figured. We almost never took our hogs to the pens

to work them any more. That took too much time. Also,

after we got them penned, there was still the dangerous

job of catching the pigs away from the old ones.

  I hollered at Old Yeller. "Bring `em on, Yeller," I

said. Then I turned and headed for a big gnarled live-

oak tree that stood in a clear patch of ground down the

draw apiece.

  I'd picked out that tree because it had a huge branch

that stuck out to one side. I went and looked the branch

over and saw that it was just right. It was low, yet still

far enough above the ground to be out of reach of the

highest-cutting hog.

  I climbed up the tree and squatted on the branch. I

unwound my rope from where I'd packed it coiled

around my waist and shook out a loop. Then I hollered

for Old Yeller to bring the hogs to me.

  He did what I told him. He brought the fighting hogs

to the tree and rallied them in a ring around it. Then

he stood back, holding them there while he cocked his

head sideways at me, wanting to know what came next.

  I soon showed him. I waited till one of the pigs came

trotting under my limb. I dropped my loop around him,

gave it a quick yank, and lifted him, squealing and

kicking, up out of the shuffling and roaring mass of hogs

below. I clamped him between my knees, pulled out my

knife, and went to work on him. First I folded his right

ear and sliced out a three-cornered gap in the top side,

a mark that we called an overbit. Then, from the under

side of his left ear, I slashed off a long strip that ran

clear to the point. This is what we called an underslope.

That had him marked for me. Our mark was overbit the

right and undersiope the left.

  Other settlers had other marks, like crop the right

and underbit the left, or two underbits in the right ear,

or an overslope in the left and an overbit in the right.

Everybody knew the hog mark of everybody else and

we all respected them. We never butchered or sold a

hog that didn't belong to us or mark a pig following a

sow that didn't wear our mark.

  Cutting marks in a pig's ear is bloody work, and the

scared pig kicks and squeals like he's dying; but he's

not really hurt. What hurts him is the castration, and I

never did like that pad of the job. But it had to be done,

and still does ff you want to eat hog meat. Let a boar

hog get grown without cutting his seeds out, and his

meat is too tough and rank smelling to eat.

  The squealing of the pig and the scent of his blood

made the hogs beneath me go nearly wild with anger.

You never heard such roaring and teeth-poppin as

they kept circling the tree and rearing up on its trunk,

trying to get to me. The noise they made and the hate

and anger that showed in their eyes was enough to

chill your blood. Only, I was used to the feeling and

didn't let it bother me. That is' not much. Sometimes

I'd let my mind slip for a minute and get to thinking

how they'd slash me to pieces if I happened to fall out

of the tree, and I'd feel a sort of cold shudder run all

through me. But Papa had told me right from the start

that fear was a right and natural feeling for anybody,

and nothing to be ashamed of.

  "It's a thing of your mind," he said, "and you can train

your mind to handle it lust like you can train your arm

to throw a rock."

  Put that way, it made sense to be afraid; so I hadn't

bothered about that. I'd put in all my time trying to

train my mind not to let fear stampede me. Sometimes

it did yet, of course, but not when I was working hogs.

I'd had enough experience at working hogs that now I

could generally look down and laugh at them.

  I finished with the first pig and dropped it to the

ground. Then, one after another, I roped the others,

dragged them up into the tree, and worked them over.

  A couple of times, the old hogs on the ground got so

mad that they broke ranks and charged Old Yeller. But

right from the start, Old Yeller had caught onto what I

wanted. Every time they chased him from the tree, he'd

just run off a little way and circle back, then stand off

far enough away that they'd rally around my tree again.

  In less than an hour, I was done with the job, and

the only trouble we had was getting the hogs to leave

the tree after I was finished. After going to so much

trouble to hold the hogs under the tree, Old Yeller had

a hard time understanding that I finally wanted them

out of the way. And even after I got him to leave, the

hogs were so mad and so suspicious that I had to squat

there in the tree for nearly an hour longer before they

finally drifted away into the brush, making it safe for

me to come down.

Chapter Ten

With hogs ranging in the woods like that, it was hard

to know for certain when you'd found them all. But

I kept a piece of ear from every pig I marked. I carried

the pieces home in my pockets and stuck them on a

shaW-pointed stick which I kept hanging in the corn

crib. When the count reached forty-six and I couldn't

seem to locate any new bunches of hogs, Mama and I

decided that was all the pigs the sows had raised that

year. So I had left off hog hunting and started getting

ready to gather corn when Bud Searcy paid us another

visit. He told me about one bunch of hogs I'd missed.

  "They're clear back in that bat cave country, the

yonder side of Salt Branch," he said. "Rosal Simpson

ran into them a couple of days ago, feeding on pear

apples in them prickly-pear flats. Said there was five

pigs following three sows wearing your mark. Couple

of old bar' hogs ranging with them."

  I'd never been that far the other side of Salt Branch

before, but Papa told me about the bat cave. I figured

I could find the place. So early the next morning, I set

out with Old Yeller, glad for the chance to hunt hogs

a while longer before starting in on the corn gathering.

Also, ff I was lucky and found the hogs early, maybe

I'd have time left to visit the cave and watch the bats

come out.

  Papa had told me that was a real sight, the way the

bats come out in the late afternoon. I was sure anxious

to go see it. I always like to go see the far places and

strange sights.

  Like one place on Salt Branch that I'd found. There

was a high, undercut cliff there and some birds building

their nests against the face of it. They were little gray,

sharp-winged swallows. They gathered sticky mud out

of a hog wallow and carried it up and stuck it to the

bare rocks of the cliff, shaping the mud into little

bulging nests with a single hole in the center of each

one. The young birds hatched out there and stuck their

heads out through the holes to get at the worms and

bugs the grown birds brought to them. The mud nests

were so thick on the face of the cliff that, from a dis-

tance, the wall looked like it was covered with honey-

comb.

There was another place I liked, too. It was a wild,

lonesome place, down in a deep canyon that was bent

in the shape of a horseshoe. Tall trees grew down in the

canyon and leaned out over a deep hole of clear water.

In the trees nested hundreds of long-shanked herons,

blue ones and white ones with black wing tips. The

herons built huge ragged nests of sticks and trash and

sat around in the trees all day long, fussing and stain-

ing the tree branches with their white droppings. And

beneath them, down in the clear water, yard-long cat-

fish lay on the sandy bottom, waiting to gobble up any

young birds that happened to fall out of the nests.

  The bat cave sounded like another of those wild

places I liked to see. I sure hoped I could locate the

hogs in time to pay it a visit while I was close by.