“You have omitted to explain this, Señor Jack,” reminded Chileno John, resting a sinewy brown hand upon the pack-saddle or aparejo; and he lifted the flap that hung down on either side.
“That thar soldier hammer?” grunted Jack. “Wall, me son, every aparejo has a duck kivver attached to its middle, so’s to protect it from bein’ cut by the ropes—an’ from weather, too. It’s got a wooden brace sewed in leather ’crost each end, yuh understan’, to stiffen it whar the cincha lays, so’s it won’t wrinkle ag’in the mule’s hide.”
“Sobre-en-jalmas is the correct name, muchacho,” said Chileno John, to Jimmie, with some dignity—for Chileno John took great pride in the Spanish language. “It is a very old name, descended to us from the ancient Moors of Spain. Sobre-en-jalmas—cover for harness. The first two words are Spanish, and the last word is Arabian. But these Americanos——!” And Chileno John shrugged his shoulders. “They do not know.”
“Wall, ‘soldier hammer,’ ‘sovrin hammer,’ or ‘Sullivan hammer,’ it’s all the same,” grunted old Jack. “Plain ‘aparejo cover’ is good enough.” And thus he disposed of the historic sobre-en-jalmas, which, pronounced rapidly sobr’-’n-halma did indeed sound like some kind of a ‘hammer.’ “After the pack saddle, ’long with its sovrin hammer, is cinched on, then we h’ist on the packs an’ sling ’em an’ fasten ’em with the diamond hitch,” he resumed. “But as we haven’t got nary packs, the fust lesson stops right hyar, me son. Now you remember what I’m tellin’ you, l’arn mules and pack-ways, an’ jump when you’re spoken to, so you won’t be a drag tail.”
“What’s a ‘drag tail,’ Jack?”
“A drag tail, me son, is wuss’n a shave tail. A drag tail is a durned lazy mule who’s alluz hangin’ back on the trail, an’ a no-’count packer who’s alluz late on his job. Savvy?”
VIII
THE ONE-ARMED GENERAL TRIES
“Hey! Cochise is out again!”
It was a spring day of this next year, 1872, and in the ranch yard on the Joe Felmer place Jimmie and his assistant, little Francisco Vasquez, were practicing pack-train.