case of trouble of any sort, instead of standing still
sensibly, she pretended to be subject to wild-eyed
panics. It was all pretense, for when you DID yield to
temptation and light into her with the toe of your
boot, she subsided into common sense. The spirit of
malevolent mischief was hers.

Her performances when she was being packed
were ridiculously histrionic. As soon as the saddle
was cinched, she spread her legs apart, bracing them
firmly as though about to receive the weight of an
iron safe. Then as each article of the pack was thrown
across her back, she flinched and uttered the most
heart-rending groans. We used sometimes to amuse
ourselves by adding merely an empty sack, or
other article quite without weight. The groans and
tremblings of the braced legs were quite as pitiful
as though we had piled on a sack of flour. Dinkey,
I had forgotten to state, was a white horse, and
belonged to Wes.

Jenny also was white and belonged to Wes. Her
chief characteristic was her devotion to Dinkey. She
worshiped Dinkey, and seconded her enthusiastically.
Without near the originality of Dinkey, she was yet
a very good and sure pack-horse. The deceiving
part about Jenny was her eye. It was baleful with
the spirit of evil,--snaky and black, and with green
sideways gleams in it. Catching the flash of it, you
would forever after avoid getting in range of her