Bandy

“ Before the week was out Bob was the man’s flunkey, the butt of his ill-natured jokes, the helpless victim of his bad temper. Inside, he writhed. Another failure was being scored against him. But what could he do? This Bandy Walker was a gunman and a rough-and-tumble fighter. He boasted of it. Bob would be a child in his hands.
The other punchers watched the affair, drew deductions, but made no audible comments. The law of the outdoors is that every man must play his own hand. The Slash Lazy D resented Bandy. ”

“ Bandy-legs had perhaps been seen in close connection with the raging beast just before the change in the latter's tune came, and the vicious snappy bark became a frightened yelp.
"What do you mean, you young scamp, hurting my watchdog on his own ground? Don't you know I could have the law on you for that? And what's that you've got in your hand there? Looks like a pistol to me. Why, the impudence of you coming in here and actually shooting my poor Carlo!"
The farmer's wife said all this as she continued to advance toward Bandy-legs. ”

“ A match is begun by the referee throwing up the ball in the centre of the field, after which it must not be touched other than with the bandy until a goal is scored or the ball passes the boundaries of the course, in which case it is hit into the field in any direction excepting forward from the point where it went out by the player who touched it last. If the ball is hit across the goal-line but not into a goal, it is hit out by one of the defenders from the point where it went over, the opponents not being allowed to approach nearer than 25 yds. ”

“ When it comes to a woman I say, Where’s the man?”
A surge of anger welled up in Dillon and overflowed. He forgot about Dud and his threats. He forgot about his trepidation. This hound was talking of June, lying about her out of his foul throat.
One of the boots was still in his hand. He swung it round and brought the heel hard against the fellow’s mouth. The blood gushed from the crushed lips. Bob dropped the boot and jolted his left to the cheek. He followed with a smashing right to the eye.
Taken at disadvantage, Bandy tried to struggle to his feet. ”

“ From the way they attack—"
"Most important," interrupted Five-gun. "Give to me in detail."
"They prefer to attack strollers, although they have attacked on city streets when there is little traffic. They fly with amazing speed, considering they are an untidy ball forty feet in diameter, and they are on top of their victims before the unlucky ones are aware of the menace. Blowing their victims down with a rush of air from their feathers, they grab them up by the heels, carry them high aloft and drop them on piles of rock outside of town."
"They are downdraft-peoplehawk-whirlybirds then?" ”

“ I think these things and dream these dreams out of a sheer passion for the chase, for what has the rabbit done to me that I should wish him to meet with so terrible an end? It is true that Bashan is closer to me than the long-eared one, and it is quite in order that I should share his feelings and accompany him with my good wishes for his success. But then the rabbit is also a warm, furry, breathing bit of our common life. He has played his trick upon my hunting dog not out of malice, but out of the urgent wish to be able to nibble soft tree-shoots a little longer and to bring forth young. ”

“ The Bannocks are all out fighting. They are killing everything and everybody, Indians and whites, and I and two more of my people went with these men out to South Mountain to fight them, and we came on to Buffalo Horn’s camp and had a fight with them, and the scouts ran away and left him to the mercy of Bannocks. I saw that I could not get away when they were all mustered on me, so I jumped off my horse and placed my horse between me and them, and laid my gun over the saddle, and fired at Buffalo Horn as he came galloping up, ahead of his men. ”

“ This kind of wild sport has an absorbing interest for Baden-Powell. What he would say if invited to hunt a tame deer, lifted by human arms out of a cart, kicked away from playing with the hounds and pushed and beaten into an astonished and bewildered gallop, neither you nor I must pretend to know; but for that kind of "sport" it is very certain [Pg 74] he would express no such enthusiasm as he does for the keen, wild, dangerous sport of the legitimate hunter. He will not seek the destruction of any quarry that is not worthy of his steel ”

“ The Lamb's mail-cart was covered with a red-and-blue checked tablecloth, and made an admirable baggage-wagon. The Lamb asleep inside it was not at all in the way. So the bandit set out along the road that led to the sand-pit.
"We ought to be near the Sammyadd," said Cyril, "in case we think of anything suddenly."
It is all very well to make up your minds to play bandit—or chess, or ping-pong, or any other agreeable game—but it is not easy to do it with spirit when all the wonderful wishes you can think of, or can't think of, are waiting for you round the corner. ”

“ Then it flashed across his mind in an instant why the natives had left so suddenly—they were lying in ambush for the three men!
“By God! bad as they are, I can't let them walk to their deaths,” said Blount, jumping outside, so as to hail and warn them. But before he could utter a sound, Banderah sprang upon him and clapped his hand to his mouth.
“Challi,” he said, “they must die. Try to save them, and we all perish. For the sake of thy daughters and of thy sons, raise not thy voice nor thy hand. Must all our blood run because of these three dogs' lives?” ”

“ In addition to his fame as a sticker of pigs, a hunter of hogs, a slayer of lions and tigers, Baden-Powell has also greatly distinguished himself as a hunter of big game and an expert polo-player. But there is scarcely anything in the shape of sport and the pursuit of outdoor life which he does not care for. Nature in her wildest and loneliest moods he loves with a whole-hearted devotion, and it is easy to perceive when reading his books and journals that he knows her in all her phases and attitudes, and loves her in them all. ”

“ How beautiful it is, how edifying to see a living creature unfolding all its forces in some supreme effort. My dog runs better than this rabbit; his muscular system is stronger; the distance between them has visibly diminished—ere they are lost to sight. I leave the path and hurry through the park towards the left, going in the direction of the river-bank. I emerge upon the gravelly street just in time to see the mad chase come ravening on from the right—the hopeful, infinitely thrilling chase—for Bashan is almost at the heels of the rabbit. ”

“ But so far from improving with the march of intellect and growing more civilized, the bandits of our days would seem to have very decidedly retrograded as regards the more polite arts of life; indeed, they are nothing but savage beasts, who can handle the carbine or the dagger, and have the passions of avarice and the thirst for gold added to the reckless cruelty of the tiger. These ferocious brigands are almost invariably accompanied in their adventurous journey through life by some beautiful fiend, either the wife or the mistress of the redoubtable chief. ”

“ It is in hunting the wild boar that Baden-Powell has a universal reputation as a sportsman. He is good, very good, at all sports, but it is as a pig-sticker that he excels, and stands out clear-cut from the rest. And pig-sticking is the sport of all sports which entail the killing of animals in which we could wish him to excel. ”

“ That express messenger was too deadly—and too game; so the bandit merely spurred his horse, lay low on his neck and swept across the desert. When he came to a little swale between some sandhills he dipped into it, pulled up, dismounted and waited. The sun was setting behind the gory hills now, and glinted on a rifle which the bandit drew from a gun-boot which a broad sweat leather half concealed. ”

“ Dane, guessing that Bad Dollar's matchet had bitten deep, and that his carrier comrades would see his victim did not escape, turned at top-most speed in the direction of the creek. Men came running behind him; but a heavier sound was audible through the patter of their feet, and he knew that one who was not barefooted fled for his life near ahead. He was running fast, but Dane, flinging the gun down, knew that he was gaining, and remembered that the man he sought would find his passage barred across the creek. So they ran, straining every sinew in a desperate race. ”

“ It is against such a fierce, resolute, and well-armed enemy that Baden-Powell loves to match his strength and cunning. Mounted on his little fourteen-hand Waler, in pith solar topee, grey Norfolk jacket, light cords, and brown blucher boots, and grasping in his hand his deadly seventy-inch spear, he goes forth to slay the wild boar, with all the feelings of romance and knightliness which some people think vanished from the world when Excalibur sank in the Lake of Lyonnesse. It is a battle whereof no man need be ashamed ”

“ Blount? Why are you armed——”
“For God's sake don't ask me now! Our lives are in danger—deadly, imminent danger. Follow me to my house!”
“But, my dear sir,” began Mr. Deighton, “I do not see—I fail——”
“Man, don't talk! Do you think I do not know what I am saying? Your two friends are both murdered. Banderah is now at my house, too exhausted to tell me more than to come and save you.”
“Dear, dear me! Oh, this is dreadful! Let us, Alice, my dear, seek Divine——”
“You fool!” and the trader seized the missionary by the arm as he was about to sink upon his knees. ”

“ You have seen them working round you, Dona Emilia—meek as lambs, patient like their own burros, brave like lions. I have led them to the very muzzles of guns—I, who stand here before you, senora—in the time of Paez, who was full of generosity, and in courage only approached by the uncle of Don Carlos here, as far as I know. No wonder there are bandits in the Campo when there are none but thieves, swindlers, and sanguinary macaques to rule us in Sta. Marta. However, all the same, a bandit is a bandit, and we shall have a dozen good straight Winchesters to ride with the silver down to Sulaco. ”

“ By simply sticking in the saddle, and gripping with his legs, he wears down the horse's opposition, silently matching his powers of endurance against the tricks and tempers of the unruly member. Seldom does whip or spur come into play when Baden-Powell is fighting for the mastery with an undisciplined horse. ”

“ In this country the bandog was kept to bait bears: with the decline of that sport, perhaps, the animal fell into disuse, as he was too ferocious for any domestic purpose. Mr. Gilchrist has furnished me with a curious passage from Laneham, which renders any further details on the subject unnecessary. "On the syxth day of her Majestyes cumming, a great sort of bandogs whear thear tyed in the utter coourt, and thyrteen bears in the inner. Whoosoever made the pannel, thear wear enoow for a queast, and one for a challenge and need wear. ”

“ Bang, bang, bang, bang! answered the rifles of the Pony Rider Boys. The horses of the bandits fairly leaped into the air. Soon after that they faded into dark, uncertain streaks on the white of the plain. Now the rifle of the solitary horseman began to speak again. Joe Withem was not afflicted with any scruples against shooting to hit. He tumbled one man out of his saddle, but the fellow's companions scooped up the wounded bandit, carrying him away with them. Withem thought he saw a man go down, but he could not be sure. ”

“ We were briefing our jockey—a scrawny youth with a pair of oversized ears—on the use of Pat's lightening rod. Being short on gray matter as well as on stature, he wasn't getting it at all.
"You mean," he said for the third or thirty-third time, "you don't want I should hit the nag with this bat?"
"Heavens, no!" gasped Pat, blanching. "It's much too delicate for that."
"Don't fool yourself, mister. Horses can stand a lot of leather."
"Not the horse, stupid," I said. "The bat. This is the only riding crop of its kind in the world. We don't want it damaged. All you have to do is carry it. ”

“ In each hand he holds a banderilla, a sharp steel dart about a foot long, and ornamented with rosettes and streamers. When the bull charges, he must reach over his horns and plant both of his banderillas in a shoulder at the same time. Sometimes the spread of horns is four feet, and the banderillero must make the pass and escape in a flash. As the bull makes the charge in a frenzied run, you find yourself unconsciously rising from your seat in anticipation of the almost certain death of the man, and women who see it for the first time usually faint and are promptly carried out. ”

“ When the great gun boomed he shrieked with joy and shot away up the gully looking for the rabbit. The poor little dog's hunt up and down the gully for the rabbit that never had been was one of the most pathetic sights I ever saw. That so many big men with such an enormous gun should miss the rabbit every time was gradually killing him with disgust and exasperation.
Meeting my groom one evening I spoke of the matter to him, casually mentioning that there was a small countryman of ours close at hand breaking his heart because there never was any rabbit. ”

“ Close behind the white man a shapeless heap of fur and black flesh lay quivering upon the over-turned tent. [Pg 291] Half-seen for a second a dim figure, whose garments were not those of a native, vanished among the remoter trunks. Men with weapons came flitting out of the shadows which shrouded the camp; and about thirty yards away a monstrous object with the head of a beast and the legs of a man was slinking toward a creeper festoon. Dane flung the gun to his shoulder and fired as it ran, but the glare of the light beat transversely along the barrel, blinding him. ”