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Show ADVENTURERS' CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF1 High Heels j HELLO EVERYBODY: This is a story about high heels, and horses an" about a fellow who had one foot in the stirrup and one f0( in the grave. The guy is Lee Burgess of Toms River, N. J., and if anJ of you fellows think, like I used to, that high heels are r good for anybody but women, and not any too good ft ' them, Lee will give you an argument on the subject. Le ' knows at least one good reason for wearing high heels.' Ar for men wearing them, at that. ' i, When Lee was In his early twenties and that was back In th f ;i! of 1919 he spent a few months on a ranch near the little town of w to Colo. A city greenhorn, he was vastly impressed by the scenery bv tr' cattle business, and by the life he saw going on around him "Br most of all" he says, "did I admire the cow-punchers and the ea'sv 31 they handled the spirited cow-ponies they rode. I fairly ached tn W'J! late them." em, Learned to Stick on a Horse's Back. Lee says there's no finer, more generous or more open-hearted H class of men than the cow-punchers. They gave him their friend i ship, and along with it all kinds of good advice on the handling K of horses. They started him riding on safe docile ponies, and al" though he was quite awkward at it, he soon learned to stick on a horse's back well enough to go riding with the boys, roundine up strays, cutting out calves and doing the thousand and one odd ' jobs that man and horse have to do on a big ranch. :? "As I progressed," says Lee, "I quite naturally changed from fob slower, more patient ponies to faster, more highly organized anima' e My seat improved, and with greater ease in the saddle my conflden in myself grew by leaps and bounds." And quite often it's nothing more than a little toe much confiden ' that leads you into one of those good old-fashioned hair-raising adventure "One bitterly cold day," says Lee, "when the air was as clear and sharp as thin glass, it was decided to move some 500 head of cattle from the home ranch down to the Old Ranch for winter feeding. I a,sked to be included in the crew and felt mighty proud when I was accepted by the foreman. With the temperature at forty below zero it was a job to keep warm. I dressed in heavy underwear, mackinaw, blanket pants, hair chaps, wool-lined coat, t mittens and cap. It was ail I could do to navigate in all-tliij i haberdashery. Having put on two pairs of heavy woolen socks my feet were too large for the tight riding boots I usually wore, so J I slipped on some big work shoes and buckled my spurs to them." V And that was an error that Lee nearly paid for with his life, ftE those shoes had flat heels, and not the high ones with which Weste " riding boots are generally equipped. ) Horse Had Bad Disposition. jN The horse Lee had chosen to ride was "Bill," a big, rangy buckskl fast on his feet, but not noted for his good disposition. They rode o to the cattle corral and the boys left Lee at the gate ready to swingyM open when the animals were bunched up for the drive. Sitting on 1 .a; Felt as if his leg were being torn from its socket. horse, he got colder and stiffer every minute he waited. Finally "7 herd was bunched and headed for the gate big, heavy, Hereford cat'j lowing, bawling and making wild dashes hither and yon. "Herefr cattle," says Lee, "are peculiar. They will not attack a mounted mr'a but they are deadly to one afoot. I didn't know this, and since the gr-jW was heavy and I was all bound up in excess clothing, I slipped off I 'it to swing it open." 7'i The next thing Lee knew he heard a yell from the foreman "1101 and looked up to see the herd almost on top of him. Someone '"w yelled, "Get on that horse. Yuh want ta get killed?" And Lee j moved plenty fast. He put his foot in the stirrup and swung Jlr." himself on his horse, but because he was stiff and cold and ham- " to se pered by a lot of excess clothing, his right foot didn't quite swiiig 'j"s clear. Instead he gave Bill a rake across the hind-quarters with fir! hi,s spur, and Bill jumped. Lee lost his hold. The next minute he was on the ground, hanging by his left foot to the stirrup. His low heel had slipped through and his ankle was held in the bow spi as if he had had on a leg iron. "Bill started to run," says Lee, "with the cattle pounding right behind. My head was dragging at the horse's heels and his steel shi,-iS(;o actually stirred my hair. I knew that to put my arms over my b!t(M was to have them smashed. My only hope was to work my foottj and take my chances with the cattle. The horse ran faster and fas rj as he became more frightened at my weight dragging alongside, p:; trary to reports, my sins did not troop before my mind at this W;. All I thought of was to get my foot free, for my leg felt as if it w being dragged from its socket." "iirs Could Feel Death Clutching at Him. ;n Lee says he could fairly feel Death reach out and clutch at him. C Jl fate had him fast by the foot, dragging him to doom; another tn dered along behind him. If he wriggled from the grasp of the one, --was --was sure to fall under the pounding hoofs of the other. .':'i0i. To right and left he could glimpse the legs of other horseJ t about him, and knew his friends the cow-punchers were doing their best to save him. "But I knew, too," he says, "that help y couldn't possibly come from them. The cattle seemed to have .!;;y fallen away somewhere, but I still had to get loose from ." f horse. I kept tugging on my imprispned foot, and suddenly there f was a snap. The lace broke, my shoe came off and I was ly s t on the ground, quiet, motionless. Believe me, for a mome I was the most comfortable man in the world. , 'ttp0 "The boys were around me, helping me up. I'll never for S foreman, a young man with a fair skin, for the freckles stoo a his paper-white face like legal seals on a state document. They me to the ranch house, and when the reaction set in I was a pre boy for a while. The foreman told me he never expected to come out alive. A short time before, a puncher on a neighboring . had been dragged by the foot ic a like manner, but hi renz had literally kicked his body to shreds." . )s 7t's And that brings us around to Lee's argument about high n 'j, see, when they're on a puncher's boots, they're not for sfi , keep the foot from sliding through the stirrup and prevent jus of accident that almost had Lee up before the celestial bar o ty cashing in his chips for a first payment on a harp. vjui Copyright WNU Service. -,( ' |