Retracing our way, in a few moments we came in sight of the wagon. It was standing stock-still in the road. As we ran up beside it, we found our caravan in a most distressing situation. The horses were standing before the clumsy wagon as motionless as statues, and with forward-pricked ears and firmly planted feet were stubbornly refusing to move a step, while the driver and our guides were dancing around them with the grace of frantic Zulus, inciting them to energy with the aid of sticks snatched from the roadside.
“What’s the matter?” we inquired.
“Can’t git the ’tarnal brutes to budge a step,” cried Hiram, desisting from the chastisement, and dropping his stick upon the road in sheer exhaustion.
“What’s the reason you can’t? Let me get at them!” cried the Colonel, furiously.
“Don’t, Colonel,” I pleaded, as my comrade began to pirouette in the Zulu dance with flourished stick. “There’s no telling what is the cause of their inability. Perhaps the poor creatures have corns.”
“No, they ’avent; no sir-ee!” cried the driver, meeting my remark with a howl of indignation. “Nary a spavin, a heave, nur a corn abeout them ar hosses, I’d hev ye know. Finest breed that was ever raised in Maine; they cum all the way from Californy.”
“Then why don’t they stir their stumps?” demanded one of the guides in a voice that made the animals quiver.
“No cross-questioning. At them again with the sticks, boys!” cried the Colonel. “We’ll put life into them.”
“No, no ye can’t. Thar’s only one thing kin inspire them ar hosses.”
“What’s that?” I asked, breathlessly.