an' think wise things, an' mebby say 'em. It's only when a gent goes trackin' 'round an' does wise things, you calls him sagacious. An' mules does wisdom. "Shore! I admits it; I'm friendly to mules. If the Southwest ever onbends in a intellectual competition--whites barred--mules will stand at the head. The list should come out, mules, coyotes, Injuns, Mexicans, ponies, jack rabbits, sheepherders, an' pra'ry dogs, the last two bein' shorely imbecile. "Yes, son; you can lean up ag'inst the intelligence of a mule an' go to sleep. Not but what mules hasn't their illoosions, sech as white mares an' sim'lar reedie'lous inflooences; but them's weaknesses of the sperit rather than of mind. "While mules don't nacherally go scoutin' for loco, an' commonly avoids said weed when found, if they ever does taste it once, they never quits it as long as they lives. It's like whiskey to Huggins an' Old Monte; the appetite sort o' goes into camp with 'em an' takes possession. No; a locoed mule ain't vicious nor voylent; it's more like the tree-mors--he sees spectacles that ain't thar none. I've beheld a locoed mule that a-way, standin' alone on the level plains in the sun, kickin' an' pitchin' to beat a straight flush. he thinks he's surrounded by Injuns or other hostiles; he's that crazy he don't know grass from t'ran'lers. An' their mem'ry's wiped out; they forgets to eat an' starves to death. That's the way they dies, onless some party who gets worked up seein' 'em about, takes a Winchester an' pumps a bullet into 'em. "Yes, Peets says if a gent was to take to loadin' up on loco, or deecoctions tharof, he'd become afflicted by bats, same as cattle an' mules. But no one I knows of, so far as any news of it ever comes grazin' my way, is that ongyarded. I never hears tell in detail of sech a case but onct, an' that's a tale that Old Man Enright sets forth one evenin' in the Red Light. "We-all is settin' 'round the faro layout at the time. Cherokee Hall is back of the box, with Faro Nell on the look-out's stool, but nobody's feelin' playful, an' no money's bein' changed in. It's only about first drink time in the evenin', which, as a season, is prematoor for faro-bank. It's Dave Tutt who brings up the matter with some remarks he makes touchin' the crazy-hoss conduct of a party who works over to the stage company's corral. This hoss- hustler is that eccentric he's ediotic, an' is known as 'Locoed Charlie.' It's him who final falls a prey to ants that time. "'An' it's my belief,' asserts Tutt, as he concloodes his relations of the ranikaboo breaks of this party, 'that if this Charlie, speakin' mine fashion, was to take his intellects over to the assay office in Tucson, they wouldn't show half a ounce of idee to the ton; wouldn't even show a color. Which he's shore locoed.'