She gimme a cut across the face with her bridle
reins." Another pause. "'Twas real aggravatin'."

Personally, I marveled at his calm.

"What made you late in toppin' out?" Ed asked in his turn.

"Well, we wuz late in startin' back, anyhow, and then I had to stop fer
an hour pickin' cactus thorns outta an old-maid female."

"Mule unload her in a patch, or did she sit down on one?" Ed was
interested.

"Naw, didn't do neither one. She tried to eat a prickly pear offa bush
of cactus, and got her tongue full uv stickers. Said she always heard
tell them cactus apples wuz good eatin'. I propped her mouth open with a
glove so she couldn't bite none, and I picked cactus stickers till I wuz
plumb weary."

"Yeh, women is funny that way," philosophized the listener. "They do say
Eve et an apple when she shouldn't ought to had."

Another lad was lamenting because he had a pretty girl next to him in
the trail party; as he said: "I was sure tryin' to make hay before the
sun went down. Every time I'd say something low and confidential for her
ear alone, a deaf old coot on the tail-end of the line would let out a
yarp--

"'What'd you say, Guide?' or, 'I didn't get _that_, Guide.'

"I reckon he thought I was exclaimin' on the magnificence of the
picturesque beauty of the scenery, and he wasn't gittin' his money's
worth of the remarks."

One guide said he had trouble getting a man to make the return trip. He
was so scared going down he figured he'd stay down there rather than
ride back up the trail.

Every morning, rain, snow, or shine, these guides, in flaming
neckerchiefs, equally audible shirts, and woolly chaps, lead their
string of patient mules up to the corral at the hotel, where the trail
parties are loaded for the trip into the Canyon. Each mule has a
complete set of individual characteristics, and mules are right set in
their ways. If one wants to reach over the edge of a sheer precipice and
crop a mouthful of grass, his rider may just as well let him reach.
Mules seldom commit suicide, although at times the incentive must be
strong.

"Powder River," "Dishpan," "Rastus," and a few other equally hardy mule
brethren are allotted to carry helpless fat tourists down the trail.
It's no use for a fragile two-hundred-pound female to deny her weight.
Guides have canny judgment when it comes to guessing, and you can't fool
a Harvey mule.

"Saint Peter," "Crowbar," and "By Jingo" are assigned to timid old
ladies and frig