Before I could set my
feet, my span followed them across the ditch; but I managed to rein them
up to a tree trunk, which the wagon tongue struck heavily. There I held
them, though they still plunged and snorted in their terror.
Willis's team was running away along the lumber trail, but before it had
gone fifty yards we heard a crash, and then a horrible squealing. The
wagon had gone over a log or a stump and, upsetting, had spilled all ten
hogs into the brushwood.
Willis now jumped to his feet and ran to help me master my team, which
was still plunging violently, and I kept it headed to the tree while he
got the halters and tied the horses. Just then we heard that terrible
_Hough--hough!_ again, nearer now. Looking out toward the road, we saw
four teams dragging large, gaudily painted cages that contained animals.
The drivers, who wore a kind of red uniform, pulled up and sat looking
in our direction, laughing and shouting derisively. That exasperated us
so greatly that, checking our first impulse to run in pursuit of the
horses and hogs, we rushed to the road to remonstrate.
It was not a full-fledged circus and menagerie, but merely a show on its
way from one county fair to another.
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