Red Hoss seemed numbed rather than unconscious. Afterward Bill Tilghman in recounting the affair claimed that Red Hoss, when discovered, was practically nude clear down to his shoes, which being of the variety known as congress gaiters had elastic uppers to hug the ankles. This snugness of fit, he thought, undoubtedly explained why they had stayed on when all the rest of the victim's costume came off. In his version, Tallow Dick averred he took advantage of the circumstance of Red Hoss' being almost totally undressed to tally up bruise marks as counter-distinguished from tooth marks, and found one of the former for every two sets of the latter. From this disparity in the count, and lacking other evidence, he was bound to conclude that considerable butting had been done before the biting started. However, these conclusions were to be arrived at later. For the moment the older men busied themselves with fanning Red Hoss and with sluicing a bucket of water over him. His first intelligible words upon partially reviving seemed at the moment of their utterance to have no direct bearing upon that which had just occurred. It was what he said next which, in the minds of the hearers, established the proper connection. "White folks suttinly is curious." Such was his opening remark, following the water application. "An' also, dey suttinly do git up some mouty curious laws." He paused a moment as though in a still slightly dazed contemplation of the statutory idiosyncrasies of the Caucasian, and then added the key words: "F'rinstance, now, dey got a law dat you got to keep lions an' tigers in a cage. Yassuh, da's de law. Can't no circus go 'bout de country widout de lions an' de tigers an' de highyenas is lock' up hard an' fas' in a cage." Querulously his voice rose in a tone of wondering complaintfulness: "An' yit dey delibert'ly lets a man-eatin' mule go ramblin' round loose, wid nothin' on him but a rope halter." Across the prostrate form of the speaker Bill Tilghman eyed Tallow Dick in the reminiscent manner of one striving to recall the exact words of a certain quotation and murmured, "De trouble wid dat Frank mule is dat he's pampered." "Br'er Tilghman," answered back Tallow Dick solemnly, "you done said it--de mule is been pampered!" The sufferer stirred and blinked and sat up dizzily. "Uh-huh," he assented. "An' jes' ez soon ez I gits some of my strength back ag'in, an' some mo' clothes on, I'm gwine tek de longes', sharpes' pitchfork dey is in dis yere stable an' I'm gwine pamper dat devilish mule wid it fur 'bout three-quarters of an hour stiddy."