Three Famous Short Novels Study Guide

Flem Snopes and Buck Hipps, a Texan, ride into a Mississippi town towing a large herd of horses behind a wagon. The horses are incredibly wild, even violent, and as such have to be restrained with barbed wire. The wound on Hipps' ear—which he has covered in black axle grease—bears testimony to their wily natures. He has brought the horses into town in order to sell them and, as such, is eager to convince his potential customers that the horses can be easily tamed and broken. He tries to corroborate his claim by approaching one of the horses but instead it lashes its hoof at him and slices his vest in two. Hipps and Flem take the horses into a pen and let them loose with a pair of wire cutters. The horses gallop madly around the interior, running in every direction and often crashing futilely into the fences. A boy comes back, the son of Eck Snopes, looking for his father who, he is informed, is back at the wagon the horses came in on. (read more)