“I was getting sort of scared.  I wanted a drop of Taos mighty bad, but the bottle was gone, and I looked at them in astonishment, and said—­’The devil!’

“‘Hush!’ screamed one, ’you must not say that here—­keep still, you will see him presently.’

“I felt streaked, and a cold sweat broke out all over me.  I tried to say my prayers, as I used to at home, when they made me turn in at night—­

        “‘Now I lay me.’

“Pshaw!  I’m off again, I can’t say it; but if this child could have got off his animal, he’d took hair and gone down the trail for Purgatoire.

“All this time the long-tailed devils was leading my animal, and me top of her, the biggest fool dug out, up the same canyon.  The rocks on the sides was pecked smooth as a beaver-skin, ribbed with the grain, and the ground was covered with bits of cedar, like a cavayard of mules had been nipping and scattering them about.  Overhead it was roofed, leastwise it was dark in here, and only a little light come through the holes in the rock.  I thought I knew where we was, and eeched awfully to talk, but I sot still and didn’t ask any questions.

“Presently we were stopped by a dead wall.  No opening anywhere.  When the devils turned from me, I jerked my head around quick, but there was no place to get out—­the wall had growed up behind us too.  I was mad, and I wasn’t mad neither; for I expected the time had come for this child to go under.  So I let my head fall on my breast, and I pulled the wool hat over my eyes, and thought for the last of the beaver I had trapped, and the buffalo as had taken my lead pills in their livers, and the poker and euchre I’d played at the Rendezvous at Bent’s Fort.  I felt comfortable as eating fat cow to think I hadn’t cheated any one.

“All at once the canyon got bright as day.  I looked up, and there was a room with lights and people talking and laughing, and fiddles screeching.  Dad, and the preacher at home when I was a boy, told me the fiddle was the devil’s invention; I believe it now.

“The little fellow as had hold of my animal squeaked out—­’Get off your mule, Mr. Hatcher!’

“‘Get off!’ said I, for I was mad as a bull pricked with Comanche lances, for his disturbing me.  ’Get off?  I have been trying to, ever since I came into this infernal hole.’

“‘You can do so now.  Be quick, for the company is waiting,’ says he, pert-like.

“They all stopped talking and were looking right at me.  I felt riled.  ’Darn your company.  I’ve got to lose my scalp anyhow, and no difference to me—­but to oblige you’—­so I slid off as easy as if I had never been stuck.

“A hunchback boy, with little gray eyes in his head, took old Blue away.  I might never see her again, and I shouted—­’Poor Blue!  Good-by, Blue!’

“The young devil snickered; I turned around mighty stern—­’Stop your laughing, you hell-cat—­if I am alone, I can take you,’ and I grabbed for my knife to wade into his liver; but it was gone—­gun, bullet-pouch, and pistol, like mules in a stampede.