silent waiting. Their air was that
of a pair of black seers who likewise happen to be fatalists, and who
having conscientiously discharged a duty of prophecy now await with
calmness the fulfillment of what had been foretold. Then they heard,
over there where Red Hoss had vanished, a curious muffled outcry. As
they subsequently described it, this sound was neither shriek nor moan,
neither oath nor prayer. They united in the declaration that it was more
in the nature of a strangled squeak, as though a very large rat had
suddenly been trodden beneath an even larger foot. However, for all its
strangeness, they rightfully interpreted it to be an appeal for succor.
Together they rose and ran across Water Street and into the stable.

The Frank mule had snapped his tether and, freed, was backing himself
out into the open. If a mule might be said to pick his teeth, here was a
mule doing that very thing. Crumpled under the manger of the stall he
just had quitted was a huddled shape. The rescuers drew it forth, and in
the clear upon the earthen stable floor they stretched it. It was
recognizable as the form of Red Hoss Shackleford.

Red Hoss seemed numbed rather than unconscious. Afterward Bill Tilghman
in recounting the affair claimed that Red Hoss, when discovered, was
practically nude clear down to his shoes, which being of the variety
known as congress gaiters had elastic uppers to hug the ankles. This
snugness of fit, he thought, undoubtedly explained why they had stayed
on when all the rest of the victim's costume came off. In his version,
Tallow Dick averred he took advantage of the circumstance of Red Hoss'
being almost totally undressed to tally up bruise marks as
counter-distinguished from tooth marks, and found one of the former for
every two sets of the latter. From this disparity in the count, and
lacking other evidence, he was bound to conclude that considerable
butting had been done before the biting started.

However, these conclusions were to be arrived at later. For the moment
the older men busied themselves with fanning Red Hoss and with sluicing
a bucket of water over him. His first intelligible words upon partially
reviving seemed at the moment of their utterance to have no direct
bearing upon that which had just occurred. It was what he said next
which, in the minds of the hearers, established the proper connection.

"White folks suttinly is curious." Such was his opening remark,
following the water applic