The Boss got a clod o' river-mud spang in the
eye, an' went off his limb like's he was trying to bust a bucking bronc'
an' couldn't; and ol' Mary-go-round was shooting off his gun on general
principles, glarin' round wild-eyed an' like as if he saw a' Injun
devil.
"When the smoke had cleared away an' the trees and rocks quit falling,
we clumb down from our places an' started in to look for Black-lock. We
found a good deal of him, but they wasn't hide nor hair left of Sloppy
Weather. We didn't have to dig no grave, either. They was a big enough
hole in the ground to bury a horse an' wagon, let alone Cock-eye. So we
planted him there, an' put up a board, an' wrote on it:
Here lies most
of
C. BLACKLOCK,
who died of a'
entangling alliance with
a
stick of dynamite.
Moral: A hook and line is good enough
fish-tackle for any honest man.
"That there board lasted for two years, till the freshet of '82, when
the American River--Hello, there's the sun!"
All in a minute the night seemed to have closed up like a great book.
The East flamed roseate. The air was cold, nimble. Some of the
sage-brush bore a thin rim of frost. The herd, aroused, the dew
glistening on flank and horn, were chewing the first cud of the day, and
in twos and threes moving toward the water-hole for the morning's drink.
Far off toward the camp the breakfast fire sent a shaft of blue smoke
straight into the moveless air.
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