heerless; the
legs of the pack-horses seemed brittle, and I felt so. Breath issued
visibly from the mouth as I trudged along. My boy and I nearly came to
blows in the early morning. I wanted to lie on; he did not. If he could
not entertain himself for half an hour with his own thoughts, I, who
could, thought it no fault of mine. I was a reasoning being, a rational
creature, and thought it a fine way of spending a sensible, impartial
half-hour. But I had to get up, and then came the benumbed fingers, a
quivering body, a frozen towel, and a floor upon which the mud was
frozen stiff. Little did he know that he was pulling me out to the most
eventful and unfortunate day of my trip.

At Chao-t'ong I had bought a pony in case of emergency--one of those
sturdy little brutes that never grow tired, cost little to keep, and are
unexcelled for the amount of work they can get through every day in the
week. Its color was black, a smooth, glossy black--the proverbial dark
horse--and when dressed in its English saddle and bridle looked even
smart enough for the use of the distinguished traveler, who smiled the
smile of pleasant ownership as it was led on in front all day long,
seeming to return a satanic grin for my foolishness at not riding it.[U]

The first I saw of it was when it was standing full on its hind legs
pinning a man between the railings and a wall in a corner of the mission
premises. It looked well. Truly, it was a blood beast!

On the second day out, whilst walking merrily along in the early
morning, the little brute lifted its heels, lodged them most precisely
on to my right forearm with considerable force--more forceful than
affectionate--sending the stick which I carried thirty feet from me up
the cliffs. The limb ached, and I felt sick. My boy--he had been a
doctor's boy on one of the gunboats at Chung-king--thought it was
bruised. I acquiesced, and sank fainting to a stone. On the strength of
my boy's diagnosis we rubbed it, and found that it hurt still more. Then
diving into a cottage, I brought out a piece of wood, three inches wide
and twenty inches long, placed my arm on it, bade my boy take off one of
my puttees from one of my legs, used it as a bandage, and trudged on
again.

Not realizing that my arm was broken, in the evening I determined to
chastise the animal in a manner becoming to my disgust. Mounting at the
foot of a long hill, I laid on the stick as hard as I could, and found
that my pony had a r