He lived again all his days with Beauty Smith
and the fights he had fought. At such times he whimpered and snarled in
his sleep, and they that looked on said that his dreams were bad.
But there was one particular nightmare from which he suffered--the
clanking, clanging monsters of electric cars that were to him colossal
screaming lynxes. He would lie in a screen of bushes, watching for a
squirrel to venture far enough out on the ground from its tree-refuge.
Then, when he sprang out upon it, it would transform itself into an
electric car, menacing and terrible, towering over him like a mountain,
screaming and clanging and spitting fire at him. It was the same when he
challenged the hawk down out of the sky. Down out of the blue it would
rush, as it dropped upon him changing itself into the ubiquitous electric
car. Or again, he would be in the pen of Beauty Smith. Outside the pen,
men would be gathering, and he knew that a fight was on. He watched the
door for his antagonist to enter. The door would open, and thrust in
upon him would come the awful electric car. A thousand times this
occurred, and each time the terror it inspired was as vivid and great as
ever.
Then came the day when the last bandage and the last plaster cast were
taken off. It was a gala day. All Sierra Vista was gathered around.
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