Just then somebody fires a shot up the street and I don’t hesitate. I hops on to that Rocky Mountain canary, sets my spurs into his hide, and down the street we goes, frog-hopping, high, wide and handsome. A bullet plows under my steed, and he sails out of Paradise faster than any burro ever did before or since.
We keep up that speed for about a mile, and then slows down to a amble. I know where a pack-trail leaves the main road, a mile or so above where the road does, so I opines to take the shortest route to the Cross J. I leads my animile, while I searches for the trail in the dark, and all to once I hears voices down the road. I hears Muley’s bass and Chuck’s baritone, a cross between a greaseless wheel and pneumonia, raised in song—
“‘It was at Aunt Dinah’s quilting partee-e-e-e——’”
Then Telescope’s tenor rings in—
“‘I was see-e-e-e-e-eing Nellie-e-e-e-e home.’”
“Tha’s harmonee,” I hears Chuck opine. “Le’s all shing ‘Holy City.’ ‘Lash night as I lay sheeping’—shay, Teleschope, why don’t this machine go on, eh?”
“How do I know,” replies Telescope. “Shomebody light ’nother match so I can read the reashon in the little book.”
“Aw, who cares?” asks Muley. “Let’s have more cheer—listen:
“I love a little lager beer,
I love a little wine;