race--but I'll do him a good turn just the
same. You tell him to watch out for that
young fellow. He's all right when he's
sober, but when he's drunk--well, over in
Kentucky, they call him the Wild Dog.''


Several days later we started out through
that same Gap. The glum stableman
looked at the Blight's girths three times,
and with my own eyes starting and my
heart in my mouth, I saw her pass behind
her sixteen-hand-high mule and give him a
friendly tap on the rump as she went by.
The beast gave an appreciative flop of one
ear and that was all. Had I done that,
any further benefit to me or mine would
be incorporated in the terms of an insurance
policy. So, stating this, I believe I
state the limit and can now go on to say
at last that it was because she seemed to
be loved by man and brute alike that a
big man of her own town, whose body,
big as it was, was yet too small for his
heart and from whose brain things went
off at queer angles, always christened her
perversely as--``The Blight.''