“Every well-organised mule team that a-way allers carries along a bronco.  This little steed, saddled an’ bridled, trots throughout the day by the side of the off-wheeler, his bridle-rein caught over the wheeler’s hame.  The bronco is used to round up the mules in event they strays or declines in the mornin’ to come when called.  Sech bein’ the idee, the cayous is allers kept strictly in camp.

“‘James’ is my bronco’s name; an’ the evenin’, followin’ the vision of that Tramperos gray mare I makes onusual shore ’that James stays with me.  Not that gray mares impresses James—­him bein’ a boss an’ bosses havin’ religious convictions different from mules—­or is doo to prove temptations to him; but he might conceal other plans an’ get strayed prosecootin’ of ’em to a finish.  I ties James to the trail-waggon, an’ followin’ bacon, biscuits, airtights an’ sech, the same bein’ my froogal fare when on the trail, I rolls in onder the lead-waggon ‘an’ gives myse’f up to sleep.

“Exactly as I surmises, when I turns out at sun-up thar’s never a mule in sight.  Every one of them idolaters goes poundin’ back, as fast as ever he can with hobbles on, to confess his sins an’ say his pray’rs at the shrine of that old gray mare.  Even Jerry, whose cynicism should have saved him, pulls his picket-pin with the rest an’, takin’ Tom along, goes curvin’ off.  It ain’t more than ten minutes, you can gamble! when James an’ me is on their trails.

“One by one, I overtakes the team strung all along between my camp an’ Tramperos.  Peter, the little lead mule, bein’ plumb agile an’ a sharp on hobbles, gets cl’ar thar; an’ I finds him devourin’ the goddess gray mare with heart an’ soul an’ eyes, an’ singin’ to himse’f the while in low, satisfied tones.

“As one after the other I passes the pilgrim mules I turns an’ lifts about a squar’ inch of hide off each with the blacksnake whip I’m carryin’, by way of p’intin’ out their heresies an arousin’ in ’em a eagerness to get back to their waggons an’ a’ upright, pure career.  They takes the chastisement humble an’ dootiful, an’ relinquishes the thought of reachin’ the goddess gray mare.

“When I overtakes old Jerry I pours the leather into him speshul, an’ the way him an’ his pard Tom goes scatterin’ for camp refreshes me a heap.  An’ yet after I rescoos Peter from the demoralisin’ inflooences of the gray mare, an’ begins to pick up the other members of the team on the journey back, I’m some deepressed when I don’t see Tom or Jerry.  Nor is either of them mules by the waggons when I arrives.

“It’s onadulterated cussedness!  Jerry, with no hobbles an’ merely draggin’ a rope, can lope about free an’ permiscus.  Tom, with nothin’ to hamper him but his love for Jerry, is even more lightsome an’ loose.  That Jerry mule, hatin’ me an’ allowin’ to make me all the grief he can, sneakingly leaves the trail some’ers after I turns him an’ touches him up with the lash.  An’ now Tom an’ Jerry is shorely hid out an’ lost a whole lot.  It’s nothin’ but Jerry’s notion of revenge on me.