Next day the bettles came out thicker than ever. With enthusiasm, I dismounted, and began to fill my emptied purse with the insects, and Coonskin followed suit by filling a handkerchief, exclaiming: "By the very old Ned! Gather 'em all; we'll have a treat for the gods."
Up to this, Barley kept on his wheel within talking distance, but now he leaped off and made a dive in the dust with his hat, as if he had trapped a butterfly. "Remember, man," I called to him, "there should be seventeen in every family; bag every one of them."
"Here's fourteen Ise got, guess dey's one family, but can't see no more; besides my handkerchief's full. Has yus got a sock yuse kin lend me?" I said I had, and then he came to get the sock. His trousers pockets were filled with the strong smelling beetles.
Suddenly, he dived for a whole entomological tribe almost under Mac's feet; had the donkey not leaped over him, we all would have been hurt.
We lunched in a small village where I purchased peppermint oil for flavoring the sauce. That night, I made a concoction that would only satisfy a Siwash appetite. We had bagged two dozen quail and doves, so we had plenty of game, and an abundance of beetles; the next thing in order was a heap of fun.
After frying our potatoes, gun oil, peppermint oil, pink tooth-powder, butter milk, lemon juice, and beetles were stirred in the frying pan, and when it began to sizzle and steam, Barley was put in charge and cautioned to keep stirring it. I thought, when he looked at the repelling mess and inhaled a little of those bug aromas, he would smell the joke, but he didn't. He kept on stirring, and smacked his lips, and finally said that it looked done. I decided to bring the joke to an end. Going to the fence ostensibly to tie more securely the donkeys, Coonskin loosened Damfino's rope while I seated myself at our table, and called, "Supper is ready." At once that grinning youth chased the freed donkey plumb into our fire, and so surprised was my courier that he never knew whether Damfino or Coonskin kicked over the pan, and robbed us of the rarest delicacy on record.
I stormed about like a madman, and blamed both attendants, then went at the hot broiled birds inwardly delighted with the success of the joke. Barley never was the wiser. The following day, several times, he told me we were passing lots of beetles, but he wasn't going to spend his time catching them to be wasted.
Something followed the game supper which more fully explains my courier's displeasure. By oversight, one of the socks of bugs was left untied; the result was, beetles ran the tent all night. Barley claimed he found a beetle in his windpipe. Coonskin spent the night lighting matches and hunting the pests. I myself smothered a score of more in my pillow. That experience closed my calendar for practical jokes.
On to Lincoln was now the watchword. While still five or six miles from the city, a donkey and cart hove in sight, both gayly decorated with flags and bunting. The driver said he had been sent from Lincoln by a prominent citizen to escort me and my party into the city.
Barley had been busy stirring up the populace, so when I rode majestically up to the leading hotel on Mac A'Rony, I found a crowd of representative citizens there to give me a befitting greeting. As soon as my donkeys were anchored, a tall, fat, jovial member of the medical profession, advancing with outstretched hand, welcomed me to the city.