“Not healthy? Up here in the mountains?”
“Tchah! I don’t mean that way, sir; I mean healthy for your pocket. This looks like a place where you might have a farm and gardens, and keep sheep. You’d never come here to search for di’monds, and sapphires, and things.”
“N-no,” assented Perry.
“O’ course not. We want good wild broken stone muddle over rocky places, where you have to let yourselves down with ropes.”
“Or ride down on rocs’ backs, eh, John?”
“Yes, sir, that’s your sort. We’ve passed several good wholesome-looking places that I should have liked to have hunted over; but of course the colonel knows best, and he is leading us somewhere for us to have a regular good haul. Tired, sir?”
“Yes, pretty well, but one feels as if one could go on walking a long way up in these mountains.”
“Well, sir, we’ve got every chance, and I’d just as soon walk as get across one of these mules, with your legs swinging, and the thin, wiry-boned crittur wriggling about under you. I always feel as if my one was groaning to himself, and looking out for a good place where he could thrust his hind-legs up and send me flying over his head into the air, where he could watch me turn somersaults till I got to the bottom.”
“Oh, they’re quiet enough,” said Perry.
“Oh, are they, sir? Don’t you tell me. My one never misses a chance of rubbing my leg up against a corner, and when he has done there, he goes to the other extreme and walks right along the edge, so that my other leg is hanging over the side; and if I look down, I get giddy, and expect that every moment over we shall both go.”