“Solomon,” says Telescope, “is a mule. A white mule—in color. He ain’t no speed-demon, but he sure can save shoe leather, Wick.” “I accepts the nomination,” says Wick and takes another drink. Chuck comes back in about ten minutes, leading that long, hungry-looking mule. We helps Wick into the saddle, wishes him a pleasant journey, and then Chuck hits Solomon across the rump with a strap. Solomon bucks stiff-legged down to the gate, and then we hear him pounding off down the hard road. Chuck stands there looking at what he’s got in his hand, and then: “Gee gosh! When I took the rope off that mule, I took the bridle, too. Poor Wickie ain’t got no rudder for his old white ship.” “Cancel any help from Smiths,” says Telescope. “Solomon, with all his wives, never was half as crazy as that namesake of his. Let us all have another inoculation of paralysis microbes and start out being merciful. We’ve got to find that lady.” Then four fools started out in the dark. We sang a song at the gate and then piked off down the road, arm in arm. As usual Muley gets so sentimental that he has to compose a little; so we has to stop while he recites: “An angel came to cow-land and stole my heart away. She was a shrinking flower that came to me today. My heart is like a sinker, ’cause I love her well, But I’m ——” Muley breaks down and begins to sob: “I can’t finish it! My rimer gets drownded in tears.” “Let me assist you,” begs Chuck. “How’s thish? “My heart is like a sinker, ’cause I love her well, But I’m ’fraid thish lovely angel has got busted all to ——! “Ain’t that shome finish?” “Grewshome ghoul,” shudders Telescope. “It’s a fac’,” argues Chuck. “Bet anybody forty dollars she never made the turn out of Sillman Gulch. Betcha she turned over there. Ain’t nobody got any shporting blood? Even money that she didn’t make that turn—thirty to forty that they hung up before they got that far. Any takers? Bet ten ’gainst forty that—that Solomon has killed Wick Smith before thish.” “Now you’re getting into pleasant conversation,” says Telescope. “That’s what I call looking at the doughnut instead of the hole.” I don’t know where we went. We took turns carrying that demijohn. We wanted something to pour between unresisting lips, like you read about, but we can’t seem to find no unresisting lips. I know we all fell into Wind River, which is three miles from Paradise. Muley hung up on a sand-bar and sobbed himself to sleep. Telescope crawled back on the bank and implored us to go ahead and save the women and children and leave him to die like a man. I heard Chuck singing— “Locked in a stable with a s-h-e-e-p, I lay me dow-w-w-wn in hay to sle-e-e-e-ep.” Me, I got tangled up in the limbs of a fallen tree and went to sleep with my feet over a limb. * * * * *