miracle to the carpet of the
green sod, swapping gibes like a couple of pirates.

"Old Nick was grabbin' for us this time," said Jud, "an' he mighty nigh
got us."

"I reckon," answered Ump, "a feller ought to git down on his
marrow-bones."

"I wouldn't try it," said Jud. "You might cork yourself."

"It was like the Red Sea," said I; "all the cattle piled up in there,
and going round and round."

"Just like the good book tells about it," added Ump; "only we was them
Egyptians, a-flounderin' an' a-spittin' water."

"Boys," said Jud, "that Pharaoh-king ought to a been bored for the
holler horn. I've thought of it often."

"Why?" I asked.

"You see," he answered, "after all them miracles, locusts, an' frogs an'
sich, he might a knowed the Lord was a-layin' for him. An' when he saw
that water piled up, he ought a lit out for home. 'Stead of that, he
went asailin' in like the unthinkin' horse."

The hunchback cocked his eye and began to whistle. Then he broke into a
ditty:

"When Pharaoh rode down to the ragin' Red Sea,
Rode down to the ragin' Red Sea,
He hollered to Moses, 'Just git on to me,
A-ridin' along through the sea.'

"An' Moses he answered to hollerin' Pharaoh,
The same as you'd answer to me,
'You'll have to have bladders tied on to your back,
If you ever git out of the sea.'"

Thus I learned that the man animal long ago knocked Young Gratitude on
the head, heaved him overboard into a leaky gig, and left him behind to
ogle the seagulls. He is a healthy pirate, this man animal, accustomed
with great complacency to maroon the trustful stowaway when he comes to
nose about the cargo of his brig, or thrusts his pleading in between the
cutthroat and his pleasant sins.

As for me, I was desperately glad to be safe out of that pot of muddy
water. I was ready like the apostle of old time to build here a
tabernacle, or to go down on what Ump called my "marrow-bones." As it
was, I dismounted and hugged El Mahdi, covering up in his wet mane a bit
of trickling moisture strangely like those tears that kept getting in
the way of my being a man.

I had tried to laugh, and it went string-halt. I had tried to take a
hand in the passing gibes, and the part limped. I had to do something,
and this was my most dignified emotional play. The blue laws of the
Hills gave this licence. A fellow might palaver over his horse when he
took a jolt in the b