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The chief of the outfit rode in the lead some distance before the first pack-mule. The laden animals followed in single file. Flanking them on each side were the armed guards, with one or two closing in on the rear.
A change of mind bestows on one for the time being a new Ego; therefore I did not grudge myself my delight in the once despised Rhone Valley. Nevertheless, I was glad that the Mule of Brig had been one with which I could conscientiously decline to associate. My resolve not to take a pack-mule there had become so fixed, that to have uprooted it would have seemed a confession of failure.
I won't be able to put it off if I stay ... and I hate tellin' you now. See here: I b'lieve I'll get a pack-mule and go over to Indian River." The Colonel looked round angrily. Standing high against the sky, Seymour, with the gateman up at the lock, was moderating the strong head of water. It began to flow sluggishly over the gravel-clogged riffles, and Scowl Austin was coming down the hill.
As neither terminus had other than pack-mule communication with civilization, the rolling stock and other material must necessarily be constructed at Hang Tree, because the people at the other end didn't know enough to do it, and hadn't any blacksmith. The benefit to our place was indisputable; it constituted the most seductive charm of the scheme.
"You must go into Italy to find an âne," replied the landlord, inexorable as Destiny. I suddenly understood how a woman feels when she stamps her foot and bursts into tears. It was too much. My features hardened. Inwardly, I swore a great oath that, if I went to the world's end to obtain it, I would have a pack-mule, or, if worse came to worst, a pack-donkey.
I ran forward along the trench and there found a white pack-mule all loaded up with baggage; I could make out the queerly worked trappings, with brass-coins on the fringed bridle and coloured fly-tassels over the eyes. It was stone dead and stiff. Its eyes glared at me a glassy glare full of fear.
By that time I shall have become a harmless lunatic, and people will treat my babblings with indulgent forbearance, when I go from house to house begging to be supplied with a pack-mule or a pack-donkey." At déjeuner, in a garden which was a successful imitation of Eden, the situation did not, however, look so dark.
So help me, friends and fellow-citizens, I'd sooner be a pack-mule in California with a raw back, and be owned by a Mexican greaser, employed week in and week out in carrying barrels of whisky over the Downieville trail, fed on three grains of barley per day, and turned out to browse on quartz rock and sage-bushes every night I'd rather be a miserable little burro, kicked and cuffed by a Mariposa Chinaman I'd rather be a dog and bay the moon in the city of Oakland, or a toad and feed upon the vapors of a dungeon at San Quentin I'd rather be a lamp-post on the corner of Montgomery Street, San Francisco, and be leaned against, and hugged, and kissed alternately by every loafer out of the Montgomery saloon I'd rather be any of these than a human being compelled to live permanently in Europe, with a palace in every city, town, and village, and an income of fifty thousand dollars a day to defray expenses; so don't be surprised if I should turn up again one of these fine mornings on the Pacific coast.
Our largest canoe weighed two hundred pounds, but a little voyager managed to lug it, though how I couldn't comprehend, since his pipe-stem legs fairly bent and wobbled under the enormous ark. None of us by this time were able to lift the loads which we carried, but, like a Western pack-mule, we stood about and had things piled on to us, until nothing more would stick.
"Two of the horses shod on the fore feet only; the other two, with the mule, barefoot. All of them mounted the mule led perhaps with a pack. "No!" he added, after a little further examination, "it's not a pack-mule!" It scarce cost the cibolero five minutes to arrive at these conclusions. How he did so was a mystery to most of his companions, perhaps to all, except the half-blood, Antonio.
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