ades.

"Did yu fellars git to see him?" was the ranger's first question.

"Did we get to see him?" echoed five lusty voice as one. "We did!"

It was after Frank, in his plain, blunt speech had told of our
experience, that the long Arizonian gazed fixedly at Jones.

"Did yu acktully tech the hair of thet mustang with a rope?"

In all his days Jones never had a greater complement. By way of reply,
he moved his big hand to button of his coat, and, fumbling over it,
unwound a string of long, white hairs, then said: "I pulled these out
of his tail with my lasso; it missed his left hind hoof about six
inches."

There were six of the hairs, pure, glistening white, and over three
feet long. Stewart examined then in expressive silence, then passed
them along; and when they reached me, they stayed.

The cave, lighted up by a blazing fire, appeared to me a forbidding,
uncanny place. Small, peculiar round holes, and dark cracks, suggestive
of hidden vermin, gave me a creepy feeling; and although not
over-sensitive on the subject of crawling, creeping things, I voiced my
disgust.

"Say, I don't like the idea of sleeping in this hole. I'll bet it's
full of spiders, snakes and centipedes and other poisonous things."

Whatever there was in my inoffensive declaration to rouse the usually
slumbering humor of the Arizonians, and the thinly veiled ridicule of
Colonel Jones, and a mixture of both in my once loyal California
friend, I am not prepared to state. Maybe it was the dry, sweet, cool
air of Nail Canyon; maybe my suggestion awoke ticklish associations
that worked themselves off thus; maybe it was the first instance of my
committing myself to a breach of camp etiquette. Be that as it may, my
innocently expressed sentiment gave rise to bewildering dissertations
on entomology, and most remarkable and startling tales from first-hand
experience.

"Like as not," began Frank in matter-of-fact tone. "Them's tarantuler
holes all right. An' scorpions, centipedes an' rattlers always rustle
with tarantulers. But we never mind them--not us fellers! We're used to
sleepin' with them. Why, I often wake up in the night to see a big
tarantuler on my chest, an' see him wink. Ain't thet so, Jim?"

"Shore as hell," drawled faithful, slow Jim.

"Reminds me how fatal the bite of a centipede is," took up Colonel
Jones, complacently. "Once I was sitting in camp with a hunter, who
suddenly hissed out: 'Jones, for God's sake don't budge! There's