Evening capital., 1904-01-07
LOADED
HORSE

Cant complain replied the Joo
| Hill man a. he lit his cigar. "Qns day
| II Jest about like another. Nothing
to feel very good about. nothing to
| feel very bad about. Accounts jest
about balance, reckon"
Anything startling out in the
rural districts!' continued the store
| man.
"Nothin's fur as I know. Every
! things purity quiet" Then the man
from Joe Hill smiled as if he had sud
| denly remembered something pleas
ant
Ever have anything to do with a
loaded horseT he asked the store
man after a pause.
Whats a loaded horsef"
ST can tell you about one better
than | can tell you what it is," ex-
planned the Job Hill man. You know
| Contractor Ryan? Well. he is exca-
waiting for the new electric road cross
ing over at the Corners, and some
times when l get to wishing | was q
millionaire and work seems a sort o.
Insult to one o. my peculiar makeup
/ like to go out there with Billy and
draw inspiration from the spectacle
| OF patient toll. 1t soothes me to
see the 'Eyetalian' jerk loose the red
Jersey clay and fling 1t h}ther and
yon. But specially / like to hear Bill
ly Ryan swear, not for the profanity
that's in it. mind you, but because
| nobody can do it like Billy can. Ever
hear Billy swear? He's a wonder.
'Tain't cussin' with him. He don't
mean anything bad, not a word Of it.
It's jest a work o. art and shows what
Billy might a. done If he had had the
advantages some have.
81 rode out to the Corners with
Billy the other day, and as We drove
up we saw the cart horse, Nike,
munching at something in the fence
corner.
What's Mike eating? Billy shout
ed to the gang in the trench. Those
| foreigners gave one glance at Nike
and then, quick as scat, every one o
them ducked his head. Billy gave a
little verbal exhibition of about thir-
ty-seven redhot words and demanded
to know what was up, and then the
foreman called out that Mike was into
the oats, and that two sticks OF dyna-
mite were also in the oats, where
they had been put for safe keeping.
| Then 1t dawned upon Billy and me
that Mike was slowly filling his sys-
TEN with oats and destruction, and
we took to the woods.
Il never see a horse become such
feature of the landscape as Nike
did in the next minute or two. But
1t didn't worry him any, and he went
right on munching the oats jest as il
nothing was about to happen there
any instant at about the rate of a
mile a minute.
"Billy and | watched him from be-
hind trees, while the gang crouched
in the trench and waited for the con-
cussion. We had never seen horse
concuss, and we didn't know jest how
to time the thing, and, say, you'd
ought to jest heard Billy pay his re-
spects to that horse! Billy yelled at
him and tried to attract his attention
and lure him away from his fate, but
Mike only looked at US and smiled
horselike, and went on with the oats.
Then we tried to frighten him away
by throwing our hats and coats up
in the air and whooping like Indians.
But we didn't want to frighten Mike
SO he would do anything rash. If he
had not got to the powder yet, we did
not want him to jump and set his
hoof on it, If he had eaten it, we
didn't want him to jar himself in any
way. What that animal needed was
rest and perfect quiet
BILLY was for throwing a shovel at
Mike, but said no, you don't want to
hit him with anything hard; it
wouldn't be fair to him. / wanted
Billy to go and lead Mike over to the
next place they were going to exca-
vate and then coax him to lay down
and take a roll. / said he would ex-
plode anyway, and they might as well
turn that enormous power to some
useful end as to let it go to waste.
But Bill said he didn't care to lead
Nike. His idea was jest to let him
browse around and follow his own in
clinations and go off when he got
ready.
Suddenly Mike appeared to feel
gay. He cavorted, threw up his heels
a couple of times, and trotted over TO
the trench. He came right up and
gazed down upon us. l tell you it was
a scary minute round there for US,
and don't you forget it. Nike seemed
to be considering whether he would
throw himself into the work, as it
were, and scoop out that trench or
trot of into town and blow up the
main street. Then he decided on the
latter.
1T was a great day for Job Hill
when Mike entered town. Everybody
turned out. Wherever Mike went the
people turned out and went in the
other direction. Then we got into
town and Mikes glory came to sud-
den end. Billy collared him and led
him away to the music of what you
might call the most adequate, salts
flying. and thrilling cussing you ever
| heard. Nobody could a done the
subject up so completely and covered
all the points of it in detail like Billy
die. The fact is that when we came
to look into that bag Mike had eaten
| fha oats all right. but he had let the