The first game was played and the coon was stuck.  He took the small milk-tin and climbed down the bank, while we sat above and guyed him.  We drank like fish.  Four round trips he had to make for me alone, and the others were equally lavish with their thirst.  The path was very steep, and sometimes the coon slipped when part way up, spilled the water, and had to go back for more.  But he didn’t get angry.  He laughed as heartily as any of us; that was why he slipped so often.  Also, he assured us of the prodigious quantities of water he would drink when some one else got stuck.

When our thirst was quenched, another game was started.  Again the coon was stuck, and again we drank our fill.  A third game and a fourth ended the same way, and each time that moon-faced darky nearly died with delight at appreciation of the fate that Chance was dealing out to him.  And we nearly died with him, what of our delight.  We laughed like careless children, or gods, there on the edge of the bank.  I know that I laughed till it seemed the top of my head would come off, and I drank from the milk-tin till I was nigh waterlogged.  Serious discussion arose as to whether we could successfully board the freight when it pulled up the grade, what of the weight of water secreted on our persons.  This particular phase of the situation just about finished the coon.  He had to break off from water-carrying for at least five minutes while he lay down and rolled with laughter.

The lengthening shadows stretched farther and farther across the river, and the soft, cool twilight came on, and ever we drank water, and ever our ebony cup-bearer brought more and more.  Forgotten was the beaten woman of the hour before.  That was a page read and turned over; I was busy now with this new page, and when the engine whistled on the grade, this page would be finished and another begun; and so the book of life goes on, page after page and pages without end—­when one is young.

And then we played a game in which the coon failed to be stuck.  The victim was a lean and dyspeptic-looking hobo, the one who had laughed least of all of us.  We said we didn’t want any water—­which was the truth.  Not the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind, nor the pressure of a pneumatic ram, could have forced another drop into my saturated carcass.  The coon looked disappointed, then rose to the occasion and guessed he’d have some.  He meant it, too.  He had some, and then some, and then some.  Ever the melancholy hobo climbed down and up the steep bank, and ever the coon called for more.  He drank more water than all the rest of us put together.  The twilight deepened into night, the stars came out, and he still drank on.  I do believe that if the whistle of the freight hadn’t sounded, he’d be there yet, swilling water and revenge while the melancholy hobo toiled down and up.