第29章 Bill, the Ventriloquial Rooster(2)

"So there was too much friction for me to go down, but I climbed a tree as near the fence as I could and watched. Bill reckoned he'd found that rooster at last. The white rooster wouldn't come down from the stack, so Bill went up to him, and they fought there till they tumbled down the other side, and I couldn't see any more. Wasn't I wild?

I'd have given my dog to have seen the rest of the fight.

I went down to the far side of Page's fence and climbed a tree there, but, of course, I couldn't see anything, so I came home the back way.

Just as I got home Page came round to the front and sung out, `Insoid there!'

And me and Jim went under the house like snakes and looked out round a pile.

But Page was all right -- he had a broad grin on his face, and Bill safe under his arm. He put Bill down on the ground very carefully, and says he to the old folks:

"`Yer rooster knocked the stuffin' out of my rooster, but I bear no malice.

'Twas a grand foight.'

"And then the old man and Page had a yarn, and got pretty friendly after that.

And Bill didn't seem to bother about any more ventriloquism; but the white rooster spent a lot of time looking for that other rooster.

Perhaps he thought he'd have better luck with him. But Page was on the look-out all the time to get a rooster that would lick ours.

He did nothing else for a month but ride round and enquire about roosters; and at last he borrowed a game-bird in town, left five pounds deposit on him, and brought him home. And Page and the old man agreed to have a match -- about the only thing they'd agreed about for five years.

And they fixed it up for a Sunday when the old lady and the girls and kids were going on a visit to some relations, about fifteen miles away -- to stop all night. The guv'nor made me go with them on horseback; but I knew what was up, and so my pony went lame about a mile along the road, and I had to come back and turn him out in the top paddock, and hide the saddle and bridle in a hollow log, and sneak home and climb up on the roof of the shed. It was a awful hot day, and I had to keep climbing backward and forward over the ridge-pole all the morning to keep out of sight of the old man, for he was moving about a good deal.

"Well, after dinner, the fellows from roundabout began to ride in and hang up their horses round the place till it looked as if there was going to be a funeral. Some of the chaps saw me, of course, but I tipped them the wink, and they gave me the office whenever the old man happened around.

"Well, Page came along with his game-rooster. Its name was Jim. It wasn't much to look at, and it seemed a good deal smaller and weaker than Bill.

Some of the chaps were disgusted, and said it wasn't a game-rooster at all;

Bill'd settle it in one lick, and they wouldn't have any fun.

"Well, they brought the game one out and put him down near the wood-heap, and rousted Bill out from under his cask. He got interested at once.

He looked at Jim, and got up on the wood-heap and crowed and looked at Jim again. He reckoned THIS at last was the fowl that had been humbugging him all along. Presently his trouble caught him, and then he'd crow and take a squint at the game 'un, and crow again, and have another squint at gamey, and try to crow and keep his eye on the game-rooster at the same time. But Jim never committed himself, until at last he happened to gape just after Bill's whole crow went wrong, and Bill spotted him. He reckoned he'd caught him this time, and he got down off that wood-heap and went for the foe. But Jim ran away -- and Bill ran after him.

"Round and round the wood-heap they went, and round the shed, and round the house and under it, and back again, and round the wood-heap and over it and round the other way, and kept it up for close on an hour.

Bill's bill was just within an inch or so of the game-rooster's tail feathers most of the time, but he couldn't get any nearer, do how he liked.

And all the time the fellers kept chyackin Page and singing out, `What price yer game 'un, Page! Go it, Bill! Go it, old cock!' and all that sort of thing. Well, the game-rooster went as if it was a go-as-you-please, and he didn't care if it lasted a year.

He didn't seem to take any interest in the business, but Bill got excited, and by-and-by he got mad. He held his head lower and lower and his wings further and further out from his sides, and prodded away harder and harder at the ground behind, but it wasn't any use. Jim seemed to keep ahead without trying. They stuck to the wood-heap towards the last.

They went round first one way for a while, and then the other for a change, and now and then they'd go over the top to break the monotony; and the chaps got more interested in the race than they would have been in the fight -- and bet on it, too. But Bill was handicapped with his weight.

He was done up at last; he slowed down till he couldn't waddle, and then, when he was thoroughly knocked up, that game-rooster turned on him, and gave him the father of a hiding.

"And my father caught me when I'd got down in the excitement, and wasn't thinking, and HE gave ME the step-father of a hiding.

But he had a lively time with the old lady afterwards, over the cock-fight.

"Bill was so disgusted with himself that he went under the cask and died."