Saddle and Mocassin

by Francis Francis

"Oh, yes, it does," drawled Tommy, in his slowest and gravest fashion. "Oh, yes—John knows better'n that. Just as soon as Geronimo[34] comes in, he knows that he'll lose his corn and have to go to chewing grass for a living, along of the cows. Of course as long as your pack-train is here, he can go down to the picket line whenever the bugle sounds for 'stables,' kick the padding out of one of your mules, and eat up his feed."

"Can he? Well, if he can kick anything out of a Government mule, he's a daisy burro, and he's welcome to all he makes by it; he can keep any change he gets, too."

Nevertheless, this was a fact. No sooner were "stables" over and the mules fed, than "John L. Sullivan" swaggered down the front of the picket line, selected a helping of maize, turned round, backed a little towards the owner of it, measuring his distance carefully, and landed him a tremendous double savat on his nose. He continued to kick until the neighbouring mules formed an orderly though envious and admiring congregation, ranged in a semicircle, straining at their halters, around him. Then having described, as a tour de force, a few unusually surprising and altogether inimitable hieroglyphics with his heels in the air in a spirit not entirely free, it must be admitted, from ostentation, he would proceed peaceably to appropriate the spoils of war. Well might his owner be proud of him! "John L. Sullivan" was indeed "the boss!"

One day Tommy visited the farrier's quarters in camp, and intimating that he wanted the burro shod, sought through the contents of box after box of shoes there. Unable apparently to find what he required, he was leaving in silence, when the farrier commented on his departure, and regretted that his search had been unsuccessful.

"Oh, it's all right, Mr. Gorham," he said politely, "it doesn't matter; I thought you'd got some silver shoes, perhaps."

Witman and Johns, two of the hands, reflected disparagingly once on the quantity of work that Tommy had done lately.

"Well," rejoined Tommy, in his most deliberate tone, addressing the rest of the company, "there's Jim Witman here; of course I don't give up so much of my leisure to work as he does, that ain't to be expected; and there's Oliver Johns, I don't claim to direct others how to do my work for me as well as he does either. But then, in the first place, my business ain't sitting under a stoop chewing other people's baccy; and in the second, I don't want to get away and shoot off my mouth at every gal, with a head like a pisened pup, that lives within fifty miles of the valley, so there ain't any necessity for any one to do my work."

In the adjoining valley dwelt a man named Donohoe, who had the reputation of always professing to know better than anybody else how anything should be done. How far he was justified in his professions I cannot pretend to say. Tommy knew and disliked Mr. Donohoe. He had put the finishing touch one day to a spring that he had been cleaning out, stone-lining, and fencing round, and was gathering up the tools that he had been using for this purpose. "And now," he remarked in the most matter-of-fact way possible, "I think I'll just ride the burro over into the Plyas Valley, and tell Mr. Donohoe what I've been doing, and ask him if I've done it right."

I am sorry that, of the many really good things said by this interesting old gentleman which were current in the valley, the foregoing feeble specimens are all (of a publishable nature) that I can now recall to mind. They will serve, however, to indicate the vein in which he ingratiated himself with his public. He exercised considerable freedom of speech; but then he was known to carry "a long crooked knife" about him somewhere, and was credited with plenty of nerve and a very hot temper.