Thinks I, I'll take the leadin' cow for my patron.

So I jist goes and cuts a long tough ash saplin, and takes the little limbs off of it, and then walks along side of Mooley, as meachin' as you please, so she mightn't suspect nothin', and then grabs right hold of her tail, and yelled and screamed like mad, and wallopped away at her like any thing.
"Well, the way she cut dirt was cautionary; she cleared stumps, ditches, windfalls and every thing, and made a straight track of it for home as the crow flies.

Oh, she was a dipper: she fairly flow again, and if ever she flagged, I laid it into her with the ash saplin, and away we started agin, as if Old Nick himself was arter us.
"But afore I reached home, the rest of the cows came a bellowin', and a roarin' and a-racin' like mad arter us, and gained on us too, so as most to overtake us, jist as I come to the bars of the cow yard, over went Mooler, like a fox, brought me whap up agin 'em, which knocked all the wind out of my lungs and the fire out of my eyes, and laid me sprawlin on the ground, and every one of the flock went right slap over me, all but one--poor Brindle.

She never came home agin.

Bear nabbed her, and tore her most ridiculous.