By one o'clock my disgraceful donkeys answered to roll-call, and with touching humility submitted to be saddled.
With such disappointing interpositions of Fate the Golden Gate seemed to be a decade removed. For a while, the donks were wavering and their pedals unreliable; but after the first hour they meandered along quite acceptably. As Mac was slow to recuperate, I rode Cheese. He was surprisingly sure of foot, whereas Mac, swell-headed, drowsy-eyed and swaying, couldn't have walked a straight line a yard wide, unless it was a yard of grass. He walked with a suspicious tread, like one venturing on ice which threatened his death bath any moment. When the afternoon was well advanced Cheese showed symptoms of lameness in his nigh fore-leg, as I had feared, in consequence of his late circus. We passed Maywood and Elmhurst as we followed the main-traveled road. I was compelled to dismount and lead my cripple four miles to Lombard. Such was my luck in the State of Illinois.
It was after dark, the second day out of Chicago, and still we had traveled but twenty miles. To think--that munificent gift, Cheese, was already an invalid on my hands! I summoned a veterinary surgeon, and listened to his diagnosis with solicitous attention. "Only a strain of the shoulder muscles," said he; "must have run-hop-skip-and-jumped to get such a strain--does he ever play golf? Will require a full week's rest." The doctor rendered his professional opinion with the air of a metropolitan specialist prescribing a trip to Europe for some delicate society belle.
Next morning I rode in company with a good fellow two miles into the country, where I purchased a very long-eared, shapeless donkey, of a good character, and quickly rode him bare-back to town. Then I sold my cripple at auction in the public square.
The cumbersome pack-boxes, which the sturdy Mac A'Rony had borne without a murmur, I also sold to pay the doctor's bill.
The following day saw me in the town of Wheaton, whose reputed beauty I failed to appreciate in a pouring rain. I remained there over Saturday night and Sunday.
The clipping of Cheese II on Monday morning proved to be an exhibition well worth witnessing--at a safe distance. That "model" character turned out to have the temper of a vixen. First, a rope was twisted round his nose, then his four legs were tied securely together, and finally six strong men held him down on the floor to permit the finishing touches to his vibrating limbs, while carefully avoiding the finishing touches to their lives.