scold the Arab. I knew I had to take the rear again. In my sorrow I
unconsciously took to my pipe, my only comfort. As I touched the match
to it the whole company came lumbering up and crowding my horse’s rump
and flanks. A whiff of smoke drifted back over my shoulder, and–
“The suffering Moses!”
“Whew!”
“By George, who opened that graveyard?”
“Boys, that Arab’s been swallowing something dead!”
Right away there was a gap behind us. Whiff after whiff sailed airily
back, and each one widened the breach. Within fifteen seconds the
barking, and gasping, and sneezing, and coughing of the boys, and their
angry abuse of the Arab guide, had dwindled to a murmur, and Davis and I
were alone with the leader. Davis did not know what the matter was, and
don’t to this day. Occasionally he caught a faint film of the smoke and
fell to scolding at the Arab and wondering how long he had been decaying
in that way. Our boys kept on dropping back further and further, till at
last they were only in hearing, not in sight. And every time they
started gingerly forward to reconnoitre or shoot the Arab, as they
proposed to do–I let them get within good fair range of my relic (she
would carry seventy yards with wonderful precision), and then wafted a
whiff among them that sent them gasping and strangling to the rear again.
I kept my gun well charged and ready, and twice within the hour I decoyed
the boys right up to my horse’s tail, and then with one malarious blast
emptied the saddles, almost. I never heard an Arab abused so in my life.
He really owed his preservation to me, because for one entire hour I
stood between him and certain death. The boys would have killed him if
they could have got by me.
By and by, when the company were far in the rear, I put away my pipe–
I was getting fearfully dry and crisp about the gills and rather blown
with good diligent work–and spurred my animated trance up alongside the
Arab and stopped him and asked for water. He unslung his little gourd-
shaped earthenware jug, and I put it under my moustache and took a long,
glorious, satisfying draught. I was going to scour the mouth of the jug
a little, but I saw that I had brought the whole train together once more
by my delay, and that they were all anxious to drink too-and would have
been long ago if the Arab had not pretended that he was out of water.
So I hastened to pass the vessel to Davis. He took a mouthful, and never
said a word, but climbed off his horse and lay down calmly in the road.
I felt sorry for Davis. It was too late now, though, and Dan was
drinking. Dan got down too, and hunted for a soft place. I thought I
heard Dan say, “That Arab’s friends ought to keep him in alcohol or else
take him out and bury him somewhere.” All the boys took a drink and
climbed down. It is not well to go into further particulars. Let us
draw the curtain upon this act.
…………………………
Well, now, to think that after three changing years I should hear from
that curious old relic again, and see Dan advertising it for sale for the
benefit of a benevolent object. Dan is not treating that present right.
I gave that pipe to him for a keepsake. However, he probably finds that
it keeps away custom and interferes with business. It is the most
convincing inanimate object in all this part of the world, perhaps. Dan
and I were roommates in all that long “Quaker City” voyage, and whenever
I desired to have a little season of privacy I used to fire up on that
pipe and persuade Dan to go out; and he seldom waited to change his
clothes, either. In about a quarter, or from that to three-quarters of a
minute, be would be propping up the smoke-stack on the upper deck and
cursing. I wonder how the faithful old relic is going to sell?