Part III. 

Then they eat their supper, Jack from his bull's horns and the bull from grass 'side the road, and after they'd eat, they laid down together and went to sleep. 

Next mornin' Jack noticed his bull wasn't travelin' so fast ashe had been, but they went on and went on, and then Jack's bull went to drink and a lot of white blubbers came up. The bull didn't say nothin'. He and Jack went on and went on, and just about sundown they heard a bull bellow up ahead of 'em, bellowed so loud it shook the ground. Jack's bull stopped, says, "I'm just about give out, Jack. I don't know whether I can lick that bull or not. Now if he was to kill me, Jack, you just skin a strop from the end of my tail to the tip of my nose and take off my horns with it. And if anybody was to bother ye, all you got to do is to take all that out and say, 

'Tie, strop, tie! Beat, horns, beat!' 

and they'll do any tyin' or beatin' you want done." 

Jack said "All right"; and then they saw the other bull a-comin', big white one with his head down and swingin' from side to side. He stopped and pawed the dirt and put his head up high and bellowed again. Jack slipped off his bull and got up in a tree. Then the black bull put his head down and made for the big white 'un and they fought and fought and fought all over the ground, and Jack's bull put up an awful good fight, scratched that other bull up considerable, but he fin'ly got thronged and couldn't get up and the white bull killed him. 

So after the other bull went off, Jack came down and did what his bull had told him about skinnin' that strop from his back and takin' the horns. Then he doubled that up under his arm and went on. 

He traveled for two or three days, and then he saw he was gettin' right raggedy, and he decided he'd hunt some work so he could get him some clothes. First house he came to the next day he knocked on the door and an ugly old woman stuck her head out. 

"What ye want?" 

"I'm lookin' for work," Jack told her. 

"Can ye herd sheep?" 

"Yes'm, I know to herd sheep." 

So the old woman hired Jack to tend her sheep, put him right to work. Jack got out on the mountain with the sheep, and directly a feller came through the pasture and got to talkie' to Jack, says, "You'll never see no peace with that old woman, Jack. She's a witch. You better watch out for her." 

"Oh, I'll stand her off," says Jack. "I reckon I can handle her." 

And Jack looked to make sure his strop and his horns were there where he'd laid 'em down. That feller went off after a while, and pretty soon Jack saw the old woman comin' trompin' up the hill. 

She stepped up to him, says, "What'll ye take, hard gripes or sharp shins?" 

"Hard gripes," says Jack. She grabbed Jack and went to chokin' him. Jack hollered, 

"Tic, strop, tic! Beat, horns, beat!" 

And the strop unquiled and went after that old woman like a snake, wrapped all around her and tied her good. Then the horns commenced gougin' her and butted her over, and she hollered, "Let me up, Jack, and I'll give ye a fine suit of clothes." Jack told the horns and strop to quit and let the old woman up. She went hobblin' back down the mountain just a-cussin'. And when Jack went up in the loft that evenin' there was a fine suit of clothes hangin' in the rafters over his pile of straw Jack laid down and slept good. 

Next day here she came a-hoppin' up toward the pasture again. "Which'll ye have, hard gripes or sharp shins?" 

"Hard gripes, bedad !" says Jack. 

The old woman came at him. Jack dodged her and hollered out, 

"Tic, strop, tic! Beat, horns, beat!"