“But while I don’t resent ’em none by voylence, still Jerry has habits ag’inst which I has to gyard.  You-all recalls how long ago I tells you of Jerry’s, bein’ a thief.  Shore, he can’t he’p it; he’s a born kleptomaniac.  Leastwise ‘kleptomaniac’ is what Colonel Sterett calls it when he’s tellin’ me of a party who’s afflicted sim’lar.

“‘Otherwise this gent’s a heap respectable,’ says the Colonel.  ’Morally speakin’ thar’s plenty who’s worse.  Of course, seein’ he’s crowdin’ forty years, he ain’t so shamefully innocent neither.  He ain’t no debyootanty; still, he ain’t no crime-wrung debauchee.  I should say he grades midway in between.  But deep down in his system this person’s a kleptomaniac, an’ at last his weakness gets its hobbles off an’ he turns himse’f loose, an’ begins to jest nacherally take things right an’ left.  No, he don’t get put away in Huntsville; they sees he’s locoed an’ he’s corraled instead in one of the asylums where thar’s nothin’ loose an’ little kickin’ ‘round, an’ tharfore no temptations.’

“Takin’ the word then from Colonel Sterett, Jerry is a kleptomaniac.  I used former to hobble Jerry but one mornin’ I’m astounded to see what looks like snow all about my camp.  Bein’ she’s in Joone that snow theery don’t go.  An’ it ain’t snow, it’s flour; this kleptomaniac Jerry creeps to the waggons while I sleeps an’ gets away, one after the other, with fifteen fifty-pound sacks of flour.  Then he entertains himse’f an’ Tom by p’radin’ about with the sacks in his teeth, shakin’ an’ tossin’ his head an’ powderin’ my ‘Pride of Denver’ all over the plains.  Which Jerry shore frosts that scenery plumb lib’ral.

“It’s the next night an’ I don’t hobble Jerry; I pegs him out on a lariat.  What do you-all reckon now that miscreant does?  Corrupts pore Tom who you may be certain is sympathisin’ ‘round, an’ makes Tom go to the waggons, steal the flour an’ pack it out to him where he’s pegged.  The soopine Tom, who otherwise is the soul of integrity, abstracts six sacks for his mate an’ at daybreak the wretched Jerry’s standin’ thar, white as milk himse’f, an’ flour a foot deep in a cirkle whereof the radius is his rope Tom’s gazin’ on Jerry in a besotted way like he allows he’s certainly the greatest sport on earth.

“Which this last is too much an’ I ropes up Jerry for punishment.  I throws an’ hawgties Jerry, an’ he’s layin’ thar on his side.  His eye is obdoorate an’ thar’s neither shame nor repentance in his heart.  Tom is sort o’ sobbin’ onder his breath; Tom would have swapped places with Jerry too quick an’ I sees he has it in his mind to make the offer, only he knows I’ll turn it down.”

“The other six mules comes up an’ loafs about observant an’ respectful.  They jestifies my arrangements; besides Jerry is mighty onpop’lar with ‘em by reason of his heels.  I can hear Peter the little lead mule sayin’ to Jane, his mate:  ‘The boss is goin’ to lam Jerry a lot with a trace-chain.  Which it’s shore comin’ to him!’