Mrs. Evans and Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara, who were sitting with him, agreed that "our girls," aided and abetted by "our boys," were equal to anything.
The dramatic representation then in progress was another inspiration of Katherine's, which had come to her when Sandhelo, getting lonesome in his high pasture ground, had followed the others to the beach, walking down a steep side of the cliff by a path so narrow and perilous that it was never used by the campers. But Sandhelo, being a trick mule, accomplished the feat without difficulty. The bathers watched his descent in fascinated silence. They feared to shout at him and so make him miss his step.
"Doesn't it remind you of that piece in the Fourth Reader about the mule?" said Hinpoha. "The one that goes:
'And near him a mule bell came tinkling Midway on the Paso del Mar.'
"Oh, you mean 'The Fight of the Paso del Mar,'" said Migwan. "The one where the two fight and tumble over into the sea. I wore the page that poem was on completely out of the book reading it so often, and wished and wished I had been there to see it happen."
"Let's do it," said Katherine suddenly. "We have all the props. Here's the mule, and the rocky shore--that low wedge around the base of the cliff will do beautifully for the Paso del Mar. And 'gusty and raw is the morning,' just the way the poem says, and if there isn't enough fog to 'tear its skirts on the mountain trees,' we can pretend this light mist is a real fog. Everything is here, even the bell on the mule. I'll be Pablo of San Diego and, Hinpoha, you be Bernal."
"Migwan would make a better Bernal," said Hinpoha modestly. "No," said Katherine decidedly, "you'll make a better splash when you fall into the lake, and anyway, Migwan always wanted to see it done, not do it. Hurry up and get your blanket, and get it wrapped gloomily around you. Sandhelo and I will start out from the hills behind."
Hinpoha fetched a blanket and strode across the beach, her fair forehead puckered into what she fondly believed to be a ferocious scowl, while the bathers ranged themselves into an audience. Katherine, between clucks and commands, designed to keep Sandhelo's feet in the straight and narrow path, i.e., the low-jutting ledge of the cliff just above the water line, raised her cracked voice in a three-part harmony and "sang through the fog and wind." Sandhelo moved forward willingly enough. Since Katherine had taken him seriously in hand that summer he had learned to carry a rider without the accompaniment of music. If he hadn't, Katherine would never have been able to make him stir, for he certainly would not have classed her husky, bleating tones as music.