neither for gray horse nor crooked path,
but turned of their own devilish wills
along the bushy mountain side. As I ran
after them the gray horse started calmly
on down and those two girls shrieked with
laughter--they knew no better. First one
way and then the other down the mountain
went those mules, with me after them,
through thick bushes, over logs, stumps
and bowlders and holes--crossing the path
a dozen times. What that path was there
for never occurred to those long-eared
half asses, whole fools, and by and by,
when the girls tried to shoo them down
they clambered around and above them
and struck the path back up the mountain.
The horse had gone down one way, the
mules up the other, and there was no
health in anything. The girls could not
go up--so there was nothing to do but go
down, which, hard as it was, was easier
than going up. The path was not visible
now. Once in a while I would stumble
from it and crash through the bushes to
the next coil below. Finally I went down,
sliding one foot ahead all the time--knowing
that when leaves rustled under that
foot I was on the point of going astray.
Sometimes I had to light a match to
make sure of the way, and thus the ridiculous