don't think I would ever go back. I wish Dad could step out of that
Harvard thing and eat supper with us!"

The shrill scream of a mule now came up from the feeding ground
below, and a commotion at the tent showed that one of the animals was
kicking up a row there.

"That's that long-eared Uncle Ike," Jimmie McGraw exclaimed. "I feel
in my bones that I'm going to love that mule! He's so worthless! If
he had two legs less he'd beat Jesse James to the tall timber in
piracy! He won't work if you don't watch him, and he'll steal
everything he gets his eyes on! Yes, sir, I feel that there's a
common sympathy between that mule and me, yet I know that we'll have
a falling out some day! He's so open and above-board in his
mischief."

"Can you see what he's doing now?" asked Teddy.

"Why, I saw him knocking at the door of the tent, and I presume that
by this time he is sitting in my chair picking his teeth, after
devouring the bread! That sure is some highwayman, that mule, yet I
feel that I'm going to love and admonish him!"

The boys dashed down the slope to the tent and found Uncle Ike, as
Jimmie insisted on calling a tall, ungainly, raw-boned mule, chewing
at a slice of ham which he had pilfered from a box by the side of the
fire.

"There's one thing about Uncle Ike," Jimmie grinned, as Ned drove the
animal away with a club. "He always looks like he had been sent for