is well known, to people who know, that old campers-out (and young men
new to it, too) will wake _once_--if in a party, each at
different times--to tend to their cattle, or listen for the hobbles of
their horses, or simply to rise on their elbows and have a look
round--the last, I suppose, from an instinct born in old dangerous
times. Mac woke up, and it was dark. He reached out and his hand
fell, instinctively, on the rail of the balcony, which was to him
(instinctively--and that shows how instinct errs) the rail of the side
of his wagon, in which as I have said, he was wont to sleep. So he
drew himself up on his knees and to his feet, with the instinctive
intention of getting down to (say) put some chaff and corn in the
feed-bags stretched across the shafts for the horses; for he intended,
by instinct, to make an early start. Which shows how instinct can
never be trusted to travel with memory, but will get ahead of it--or
behind it. (Say it was instinct mixed with or adulterated by drink.)
He got a long, hairy leg over and felt (instinctively) for the hub of
the wheel; his foot found and rested on the projecting ledge of the
balcony floor outside, and that, to him, was the hub all right. He
swung his other leg over and expected to drop lightly on to the grass
or dust of the camp; but, being instinctively rigid, he fell heavily
some fifteen feet into a kerbed gutter.

As a result of his howls lights soon flickered in windows and
fanlights; and with prompt, eager, anxious, and awed bush first-aid
and assistance, they carried a very sober, battered and blasphemous
driver inside and spread mattresses on the floor. And, some six weeks
afterwards, an image, mostly of plaster-of-Paris and bandages,
reclined, much against its will, on a be-cushioned cane lounge on the
hospital veranda; and, from the only free and workable corner of its
mouth, when the pipe was removed, came shockingly expressed opinions