“Well, what are you two standing there guffawing about?” Ollie demanded, his rage in no way abated by the evident amusement of his friends. “You hee-haw like that beast itself.”
This was too much for Harper, and with his arms folded across his stomach he doubled up like a jack knife in his mirth. But his position was rather unfortunate. He had his back to, and was directly in front of, the outraged Ollie, who hauled off and gave Harper his boot with a force that straightway brought him upright.
“Look here,” he ejaculated in pained surprise.
“Look here!” repeated Ollie. “I’ve looked here, I’ve looked there, I’ve looked all over this blamed camp for that ornery offspring of Satan. I guess you fellow’s would like to see me get a couple of days in the guard for letting her get away.”
“Could anybody ever keep her when she made up her mind to go?” Tom asked, now laughing as well at Harper as at Ogden.
“Well, I couldn’t, anyway, and it’s not my fault,” Ollie asserted. “Just because a fellow’s doing stable police he can’t be personal valet to a beast like that all day. She—he—say, what is a mule, anyway? A he or a she?”
“A mule is what America was before Germany tested her too far,” Harper advised him.
“What do you mean?” asked Ollie, with a blank look.
“Neutral.”
“Oh, no. You’ve got Maud wrong. She’s never neutral. She’s belligerent all the time.”