too. I got so nervous my mouth simply ached to
let out a cayoodle. The words kept trying to crawl through my
sesophagus, and when I backed 'em up, they slid down and stood around
in groups, hanging onto the straps, gradually filling me with witful
gems of thought.

"The Colonel talked to me serious and quiet, like I had good ears,
and says, 'My man, you can understand every word I say, I'm sure, and
what your object is in maintaining this ridiculous silence, I don't
know. You're accused of a crime, and it looks serious for you."

"Then he gazes at me queer and intent, and says, 'If you only knew
how bad you are making your case you'd make a clean breast of it.
Come now, let's get at the truth.'

"Them thought jewels and wads of repartee was piling up in me fast,
like tailings from a ground-sluice, till I could feel myself getting
bloated and pussy with langwidge, but I thought, 'No! to-morrow Kink
'll be safe, and then I'll throw a jolt into this man's camp that'll
go down in history. They'll think some Chinaman's been thawing out a
box of giant powder when I let out my roar.'

"I goes to the guard-house again, with a soldier at my back.
Everything would have been all right if we hadn't run into a mule
team.

"They had been freighting from the railroad, and as we left the
barracks we ran afoul of four outfits, three span to the wagon, with
the loads piled on till the teams was all lather and the wheels
complainin' to the gods, trying to pass the corner of the barracks
where there was a narrow opening between the buildings.

"Now a good mule-driver is the littlest, orneriest speck in the human
line that's known to the microscope, but when you get a poor one,
he'd spoil one of them cholera germs you read about just by contact.
The leader of this bunch was worse than the worst; strong on
whip-arm, but surprising weak on judgment. He tried to make the
turn, run plump into the corner of the building, stopped, backed,
swung, and proceeded to get into grief.

"The mules being hot and nervous, he sent them all to the loco patch
instanter. They began to plunge and turn and back and snarl. Before
you could say 'Craps! you lose,' them shave-tails was giving the
grandest exhibition of animal idiocy in the Territory, barring the
teamster. He follered their trail to the madhouse, yanking the
mouths out of them, cruel and vicious.

"Now, one mule can cause a heap of tribulation, and six mules can
break a man's hear