Dan, "but about midnight I seemed to hear hail onto the roof, and a
shower of rocks and stones like to a blast started in the canyon.
When I got up and struck a light, thar was suthin' like onto a cord
o' kindlin' wood and splinters whar she'd stood asleep, and a hole
in the side o' the shanty, and--no Jinny! Lookin' at them hoofs o'
hern--and mighty porty they is to look at, too--you would allow she
could do it!" I fear that this performance laid the foundation of
her later infelicitous reputation, and perhaps awakened in her
youthful breast a misplaced ambition, and an emulation which might
at that time have been diverted into a nobler channel. For the
fame of this juvenile performance--and its possible promise in the
future--brought at once upon her the dangerous flattery and
attention of the whole camp. Under intelligently directed
provocation she would repeat her misguided exercise, until most of
the scanty furniture of the cabin was reduced to a hopeless wreck,
and sprains and callosities were developed upon the limbs of her
admirers. Yet even at this early stage of her history, that
penetrating intellect which was in after years her dominant quality
was evident to all. She could not be made to kick at quartz
tailings, at a barrel of Boston crackers, or at the head or shin of
"Nigger Pete." An artistic discrimination economized her surplus
energy. "Ef you'll notiss," said Dan, with a large parental
softness, "she never lets herself out to onst like them mules or
any jackass ez I've heerd of, but kinder holds herself in, and, so
to speak, takes her bearings--sorter feels round gently with that
off foot, takes her distance and her rest, and then with that ar'
foot hoverin' round in the air softly, like an angel's wing, and a
gentle, dreamy kind o' look in them eyes, she lites out! Don't ye,
Jinny? Thar! jist ez I told ye," continued Dan, with an artist's
noble forgetfulness of self, as he slowly crawled from the