It was; but too much like taking a loan out of a
blind beggar's hat. 'F I'd been a decent man I'd quit. There was
a fatal fascination about Percival, though--you wondered how much
he _would_ swaller--kind of spurred you up to heave something at
him he'd see wasn't so. It needed a better man than me to do it.
You never in all your life heard of such things as took place along
that route. As he said, it made him glad to think he'd got holt of
a man who had the history of the country at his fingers' ends.

"He showed nothing but a thirst for information when I pointed out
Grant's Leap--the place where General Grant hopped to safety with
three Apache arrows sticking in the fulness of his pants.

"'Why!' says Percival, 'I never heard that General Grant was out in
this country.'

"I shook my head wise. 'No,' says I; 'he kept it dark.'

"'Nothing against his good name, I hope?' says he, anxious.

"'Not at all,' says I, warm. 'He done it to oblige a friend--it
was told me in confidence, so I can't say more.'

"Just then we made a turn that brought Grant's Leap into better
view. I'd thought it was a narrer slit, but it 'ud be a good
horse-pistol that could carry across.

"'General Grant must have been very agile as a young man,' says
Percival.

"'Not at all,' says I. 'It ain't mor'n fifty feet, and that was
before he was all wore out runnin' for the Presidency.'

"'Oh, I see,' says Percival. 'Don't think I meant to doubt you.'

"'I didn't,' says I, my conscience biting me again.

"There was no help for it, though; he had to have a story of every
queer-looking hole, rock, tree, or mud-puddle we saw. There was
one spooky-looking tree, dead on one side. 'Now,' thinks I, 'I
shall lay you out and quit.'

"So I told him about how the vigilantes had wrongly suspected a man
who peddled rubber hose of a murder, overtook him under that very
tree, and, lacking rope, strung him with a section of his own
goods, riding away without a look behind them. When the poor lad
was yanked off the horse the hose stretched so his feet touched the
ground: he gave a jump, went up high enough to loose the strain,
swallowed a mouthful of air, and so forth. His hands being
strapped behind him he couldn't help himself, but for three days he
hopped up and down there, securing light refreshment by biting the
leaves off the tree, which, strange to say, never put out green
leaves on that side again.

"'And then he was rescued? Who