sensitive, an' he regyards them bats in the nose as insults. As I
says, you-all should have seen him! He'd poise himse'f on his toes,
erect the horn on his nose, same as one of these yere rhinoceroses
of holy writ, an' then the way Augustus hooks an' harasses that
offensive sardine box about the camp is a lesson to folks.'

"'Where's this yere Augustus now?' asks Dan Boggs, who's got all
wropped up in the Colonel's narratifs.

"'Petered,' says the Colonel, an' thar's feelin's in his tones;
'pore Augustus cashes in. He's followin' me about one mornin'
watchin' me hook up--we was gettin' ready to move camp--an' all
inadvertent I backs the wagon onto Augustus. The hind wheel goes
squar' over him an' flattens Augustus out complete. He dies with his
eyes fixed on me, an' his looks says as plain as language, "Cheer
up, Colonel! This yere contreetemps don't change my affections, for
I knows it's a misdeal." You-all can gamble I don't do nothin' more
that day but mourn.'

"'Which I should shorely say so!' says Dan Boggs, an' his voice is
shakin'; 'a-losin' of a gifted horned toad like Augustus! I'd a-
howled like a wolf.'

"'But as I'm sayin',' resoomes the Colonel, after comfortin' himse'f
with about four fingers; 'speakin' of the transmigration of souls, I
goes off wrong about Hoppin' Harry that time. I takes it, he used to
be one of these yere Eastern toads on account of his gait. But I'm
erroneous. Harry, who is little an' spry an' full of p'isen that a-
way, used to be a t'rant'ler. Any gent who'll take the trouble to
recall one of these hairy, hoppin' t'rant'ler spiders who jumps