"Was you ever an aeronaut yourself?" asts the
feller.
"No," says the doctor.
"Never been up in a balloon?"
"No."
"Well, you're going up in one this afternoon!"
"What do you mean?" asts Doctor Kirby.
"We've come out to see a balloon ascension--
and we're going to see it, too."
And with that the hull crowd made a rush at
the doctor.
Well, I been in fights before that, and I been in
fights since then. But I never been in no harder
one. The doctor and the two Blanchet brothers
and me managed to get backed up agin the fence
in a row when the rush come. I guess I done my
share, and I guess the Blanchet brothers done theirn,
too. But they was too many of 'em for us--too
dern many. It wouldn't of ended as quick as it
did if Doctor Kirby hadn't gone clean crazy.
His back was to the fence, and he cleaned out
everything in front of him, and then he give a wild
roar jest like a bull and rushed that hull gang--
twenty men, they was--with his head down.
He caught two fellers, one in each hand, and he
cracked their heads together, and he caught two
more, and done the same. But he orter never
took his back away from that fence. The hull
gang closed in on him, and down he went at the
bottom of a pile. I was awful busy myself, but
I seen that pile moving and churning.
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