“‘Here! you infernal half-spiled, dog-robbing walloper,’ I says; ’you don’t know enough to drive puddle ducks to a pond.  You quit heaving that quirt or I’ll harm you past healing.’

“He turned his head and grit out something through his teeth that stimulated my circulation.  I skipped over the wheels and put my left onto his neck, fingering the keys on his blow-pipe like a flute.  Then I give him a toss and gathered up the lines.  Say! it was like the smell of grease-paint to an actor man for me to feel the ribbons again, and them mules knew they had a chairman who savvied ’em too, and had mule talk pat, from soda to hock.

“I just intimated things over them with that whip, and talked to them like they was my own flesh and blood.  I starts at the worst words the English langwidge and the range had produced, to date, and got steadily and rapidly worse as long as I talked.

“Arizony may be slow in the matter of standing collars and rag-time, but she leads the world in profanity.  Without being swelled on myself, I’ll say, too, that I once had more’n a local reputation in that line, having originated some quaint and feeling conceits which has won modest attention, and this day I was certainly trained to the minute.

“I addressed them brutes fast and earnest for five minutes steady, and never crossed my trail or repeated a thought.

“It must have been sacred and beautiful.  Anyhow, it was strong enough to soak into their pores so that they strung out straight as a chalk-line.  Then I lifted them into the collars, and we rumbled past the building, swung in front of the commissary door, cramped and stopped.  With the wheelers on their haunches, I backed up to the door square as a die.

“I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and looked up into the grinning face of about fifty swatties, realizing I was a mute—­and a prisoner.

“I heard a voice say, ‘Bring me that man.’  There stood the Colonel oozing out wrath at every pore.

“I parted from that wagon hesitating and reluctant, but two soldiers to each leg will bust any man’s grip, I lost some clothes, too, after we hit the ground, but I needed the exercise.

“The old man was alone in his office when they dragged me in, and he sent my guards out.

“‘So you found your voice, did you?’ he says.

“’Yes, sir,” I answers.  ‘It came back unexpected, regular miracle.’

“’He drummed on the table for a long time, and then says, sort of immaterial and irreverent, ‘You’re a pretty good mule puncher, eh?’

“‘It ain’t for me to say I’m the best in the Territory,’ I says; ’but I’m curious to meet the feller that claims the title.’

“He continues, ’It reminds me of an exhibition I saw once, back in New Mexico, long time ago, at the little Flatwater Canyon.’

“’Maybe you’ve heard tell of the fight there when the Apaches were up?  Yes?  Well, I happened to be in that scrimmage.’