er defects. She thought too much for
herself; she made up opinions about people; she speculated on just how
far each member of the party, man or beast, would stand imposition, and
tried conclusions with each to test the accuracy of her speculations;
she obstinately insisted on her own way in going up and down hill,--a
way well enough for Dinkey, perhaps, but hazardous to the other less
skillful animals who naturally would follow her lead. If she did
condescend to do things according to your ideas, it was with a mental
reservation. You caught her sardonic eye fixed on you contemptuously.
You felt at once that she knew another method, a much better method,
with which yours compared most unfavorably. "I'd like to kick you in
the stomach," Wes used to say; "you know too much for a horse!"

If one of the horses bucked under the pack, Dinkey deliberately tried
to stampede the others--and generally succeeded. She invariably led
them off whenever she could escape her picket-rope. In 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 heels or teeth. But it was
all a delusion. Jenny's disposition was mild and harm