gged to start, but at last he
announced himself as ready. Two of my brothers held the horse until he
found the off stirrup, and then they turned him loose. The chestnut
danced off a few rods, and settled down into a steady clip that was
good for five or six miles an hour.

"My father reached the house in good time for the funeral services,
but when the procession started for the burial ground, the horse was
somewhat restless and impatient from the cold. There was quite a
string of wagons and other vehicles from the immediate neighborhood
which had braved the mud, and the line was nearly half a mile in
length between the house and the graveyard. There were also possibly a
hundred men on horseback bringing up the rear of the procession; and
the chestnut, not understanding the solemnity of the occasion, was
right on his mettle. Surrounded as he was by other horses, he kept his
weather eye open for a race, for in coming home from dances and
picnics with my brothers, he had often been tried in short dashes of
half a mile or so. In order to get him out of the crowd of horses, my
father dropped back with another pioneer to the extreme rear of the
funeral line.

"When the procession was nearing the cemetery, a number of horsemen,
who were late, galloped up in the rear. The chestnut, supposing a race
was on, took the bit in his teeth and tore down past the procession as
though it was a free-for-all Texas sweepstakes, the old man's white
beard whipping the breeze in his endeavor to hold in the horse. Nor
did he check him until the head of the procession had been passed.
When my father returned home that night, there was a family round-up,
for he was smoking under the collar. Of course, my brothers denied
having ever run the horse, and my mother took their part; but the old
gent knew a thing or two about horses, and shortly afterwards he got
even with his boys by selling the chestnut, which broke their hearts
properly."

The elder of the two placer miners, a long-whiskered, pock-marked man,
arose, and after walking out from the fire some distance returned and
called our attention to signs in the sky, which he assured us were a
sure indication of a change in the weather. But we were more anxious
that he should talk about something else, for we were in the habit of
taking the weather just as it came. When neither one showed any
disposition to talk, Flood said to them,--

"It's bedtime with us, and one of you can sleep with me,