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Before many hours some of them would be prostrated with headache, and begging to be taken out; and perhaps the superintendent would not let them out, because if a few came, the rest would get scared and want to come also. Once, only last year, there had been an accident of that sort. A young mule-driver, a Croatian, told Hal about it while they sat munching the contents of their dinner-pails.
Besides Jeff Cotton, and his assistant, "Bud" Adams, who wore badges, and were known, there were other assistants who wore no badges, and were not supposed to be known. Coming up in the cage one evening, Hal made some remark to the Croatian mule-driver, Madvik, about the high price of company-store merchandise, and was surprised to get a sharp kick on the ankle.
I hired a black mozo, who was supposed to be a mule-driver and an interpreter too. It turned out that he could interpret mules all right, but he drove the English language much too hard. His name sounded like a Yale key when you push it in wrong side up, but I called him McClintock, which was close to the noise.
Don Quixote no sooner saw this than, raising his eyes to heaven, and calling on his Lady Dulcinea del Toboso, he lifted up his spear with both hands and gave the mule-driver such a whack over the head that the man fell down senseless. Then, picking up his armor and putting it back in the horse-trough, he went on with his march, taking no further notice of the poor mule-driver.
A mule-driver interposed: "I understand the story thus: None of us has any property on earth. We are all only the stewards of the property and when we give of it to the needy, we are unjust stewards because we give what is not ours, and yet we do right." Some shook their heads over this interpretation; the rich and those learned in the Scriptures could not understand it.
Had conditions been normal, discharging a mule-driver would have been of so little moment it would have passed without comment. But O'Day's quiet work had not been without its effect. The same evening, a delegation of miners waited upon Mr. Hobart. Ketchomunoski was to be put back or the rest of them would go out. Mr. Hobart listened to their terms. He considered the question before replying.
I have heard a mule-driver overwhelmed with skeptical derision because he claimed to have upset but six times in traversing a certain bit of trail not over five miles long; in charts of the mountains are marked many trails which are only "ways through," you will find few traces of predecessors; the same can be said of trails in the great forests where even an Indian is sometimes at fault.
As Don Quixote saw the man come up, "Take heed, rash Knight," he cried. "Defile not by a touch the armor of the most brave knight-errant that ever wore a sword." But the mule-driver took no notice of Don Quixote. He picked up the armor and threw it away.
Reader, could you thus stand upon the summit of Orizava, and look down to the shores of the Mexican Gulf, you would have before you, as on a map, the scene of our "adventures." Anahuac is Mexico. Jornada is a day's journey. Pescador is a fisherman. Vomito is yellow-fever. Carbonero is charcoal-burner. Arriero is mule-driver.
On a Sunday morning he was strolling with his mule-driver friend Tim Rafferty, a kindly lad with a pair of dreamy blue eyes in his coal-smutted face. They came to Tim's home, and he invited Hal to come in and meet his family. The father was a bowed and toil-worn man, but with tremendous strength in his solid frame, the product of many generations of labour in coal-mines.
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