Eureka is a good old mining town that saw its finish when Congress demonetized silver. As have some clouds, it has a silver lining; the earth beneath and the surrounding hills are rich, or rather poor, in the white metal. A few of the mines were still operating, and any one could see ten-horse teams drawing ore done up in bags, like grain, to fool any mule or donk. The night we hungry donkeys arrived in town we followed a wagon filled with bags of ore a quarter of a mile out of our course before Prof. discovered the mistake.
I observed that the populace didn't take much interest in what I had to say, so I didn't say much, but I thought lots, and stored away plenty of grain and hay, to say nothing of water. The amount I drank would make a camel envious. But I wasn't satisfied. I hadn't tasted fruit for a long time. So I got out of the corral, strolled to a grocery store, and helped myself to dried apples; I was about to nab a bacon when I was driven away to a watering-trough by a kind boy who knew a thing or two, and then led to the corral.
I remembered having eaten less than two quarts of apples, but before ten minutes were gone I easily believed I had eaten ten bushel. To look at me you would have sworn I had swallowed a barrelful, barrel and all. Most of the day, I spent rolling round the corral in pain. For the first time in my life I knew what it was to be really tight.
The kind boy stood innocently by, and a companion of his dared him to go up first. "Up where?" asked the kind boy.
"Up in the balloon, yo' big idiot!" said the other. "Jest got ter tie a basket to his tail, and git in, and hang on. Fillin' fast, he'll rise purty soon."
That mockery was more than I could stand while lying down, so I rolled on to my feet and made both boys scarce. And if a horse-doctor hadn't stabbed me, the kind boy would have needed a balloon to save himself.
That evening saw me well again, but my cravings took a different turn. I had a taste for a newspaper. Finally a man threw one to me. Among its contents, I ran across the following squib, and smiled:
"MAC TEMPTED AND DRIVEN OUT.
Some vixen let out one of Pye Pod's burros—it happened to be his pet jack—then drove him to Pete Dago's open-air lunch counter, where the ass helped himself to that diet which would go farthest, yet take up the least room—dried apples. It's a sad story, but the worst is over, and save a small doctor's bill, and a grocer's bill, and a five dollar bill, and the small boy, Bill, who has been placed in the coop for the night, no other bill figures in the case. The distinguished party leave in the morning, also the nigh extinguished party (meaning me). Adam was the first ass to be tempted to eat of forbidden fruit, but not the last. Adam blamed Eve. Mac blames a kind boy. Adam deserved some commiseration for having perhaps sampled apples too green, for we know what it is to be a boy, but no compassion can be tendered the 'narrow-gage mule' that is such an ass as to pack away a hundred pounds of evaporated apples, gulp down a cistern, and expect to fly."
During his sojourn Pod wrote his weekly letter, discussed the desperadoes with the sheriff, photographed some crippled, dried-up Piute Indians, and doctored the sick dog, for Don had on the trail imbibed too freely of alkali water.