Part 6 (2/2)

Then he looked at Frank, and then, pointing with one hand at Frank's money, with the other he touched the donkey which seeo for that price As there was not quite a dollar in Frank's hand, in loose change, the charge seemed to him to be very reasonable, and even, as he expressed it, dirt cheap So thought all the rest, and they all proceeded to bring forth their loose change, and pass it over to the old-man The hands of the latter closed over the silver, with a nervous and alry look at each lot that was given him, he would insert each very carefully in the re in front of him, suspended around his waist

But now arose a difficulty The donkeys had no saddles That was a small matter, however, and was not the real difficulty The real difficulty lay in the fact that they had no bridles How could they guide thens to express this difficulty to the old man, and the latter understood hied his shoulders, and then pointed to his boy, and waved his band in the direction they wished to go The boy also sns of his own, by which he plainly showed theuide, and lead the drove, while theyunderstood, the boys felt satisfied, and each one now proceeded to select the donkey which was most to his taste Bob had already est donkey of the lot--an aniave hiance All the boys envied Bob his mount; but none of them complained Frank secured a solid anih he had no nonsense in hiht shade of h he had known sorrow David's donkey was a shaggy, hard-headed, dogged-looking ani his oay Uncle Moses'

mount was rather eccentric He chose the smallest animal of the lot,--a donkey, in fact,--which was so sround with difficulty Uncle Moses, indeed, if he had chosen, round, and accelerated thehihter that arose aallant steed, and turned to look upon his coht chaff arose, and the boys found no end of fun in this new adventure But Uncle Moses wasn't able to see any fun in it at all He sat with an expression on his face that would have done honor to a martyr at the stake, and the boys respected hiood-natured raillery

The Italian boy took David's donkey by the ear, and started

David's donkey, in spite of his appearance of obstinacy, folloithout resistance, and trotted ni easily by his side The other donkeys followed As they had no bridles and no saddles, so their balance, butthe coarse hair of the donkey's mane The pace was a rapid one, and it onderful to see hoell the Italian boy kept up with the it This he did for a long ti for saddle or bridle was Bob On the back of a donkey he felt as co in an easy-chair As they trotted along the road, Bob sat with his ar loosely, non up in front of hi that he had a side-saddle

At length he became discontented with the subordinate position that he was occupying, inin the rear of a leader like David He was a far better rider than David, and his donkey a far better donkey than the leading one With the ambitions desire to obtain the post of honor for hi time this had no effect whatever; the donkey not only was not stimulated by it, but he did not even seem to be conscious of it At last Bob deter a pin fro the place of a lost button, he stuck it two or three times in the donkey's flanks

This was too much The patience of Bob's donkey had reached its farthest limit It could endure it noforward, and in three paces had cleared the way to the first Another leap, and he was beyond them

The donkey ran like a race-horse His slender, sinewy li and for speed as the limbs of an antelope His head was down, his neck arched, his tail in the air, and his long, rapid strides bore hi velocity far ahead and far away

The Italian boy tittered a cry of dis stopped also, and the others did the same The Italian boy looked with a face of consternation after the runaway All the rest looked with vague fears in the saht stop the animal, or turn hih they did not understand Italian, yet there was soesture, which told the of those words--”He's lost!”

CHAPTER VI

_Flight of Bob--Difference between a tame Donkey and a wild ass--Carried off to the Mountains--The Headlong Course--The Mountain Pass--The Journey's End--Ill-oands_

When the donkey first bounded off, the feelings of Bob were nothing but pure, unht As his spirited anih the crowd and reached the head, Bob's heart swelled with triu the road, far ahead of the rest, his triumph increased He turned his head, and waved his hands to his friends Then he waved his cap in the air, and shouted, ”Hurrah!” Then he rode side-saddle fashi+on for a little while, then he drew both legs up in front, and then he indulged in a series of absurd and fantastic tricks

All this Bob did because he supposed that he was riding ahead of his friends, and that they were following hi hireat rate of speed at which his donkey was carrying hi all the rest behind So, while he had been indulging in his pranks for the a him, he was, in reality, already beyond the reach of their eyes

For his donkey was an animal very far superior to the common herd

He was not a donkey--he was an ass--spirited, slender, sinewy, and fleet as a race-horse There was soait that it deceived the rider It see midway between that and a canter In reality this easy pace was exceedingly swift, and before long Bob was out of sight of his friends This discovery burst upon hi back some nonsense to them, when, to his utter ans of them whatever

It ave to Bob was a very powerful one He looked all around in anxious curiosity, with the endeavor to coht was, that so theress, and understood the true state of the case' He was now in a place where the road ran straight for over a mile At the end of this it turned As Bob reached this turning-place, he looked back again, and far away, just at the entrance upon the straight piece of road, he saw the party coht

And now Bob began to feel that his situation was a serious one It was not pleasant to be carried away in this e country, on the back of an animal like this Had it been a runaway horse, he would have felt less troubled He would, in fact, have felt quite at home, for he had been frequently run aith on horseback He understood horses, but of asses he knew nothing A horse was to some extent a sensible animal He would run away, and in due time would come to a pause But an ass! Was an ass possessed of any sense of decency--any conscience? Would the well-known obstinacy of the ass be shown on an occasion like this? and would this ass,for all the rest of the day? It was a startling thought

Bob all this ti desperate efforts to stop the ass He was considerably embarrassed by the fact that there was no bridle, and no way of getting at the ass, so as to exert his strength upon hi ears For this the ass cared not a whit He did not seem to be conscious of it Then he wound his hands about his neck, and tried to pull his head back The effect was useless Bob's strength was unavailing He could no hten the crooked fluke of an anchor Then he pounded wildly upon the neck, shoulders, and flanks of the ass, and kicked against his sides This, too, was useless, for his puny blows seemed to affect the animal no more than so ht, and suddenly called, in a short, sharp, peremptory voice, ”Whoa!” This he repeated over and over, but without any success; and at length he reflected that _whoa_ was English, a language which, of course, an Italian ass could not understand

While Bob had been putting forth these efforts, the ass bad been flying along at an undiminished rate of speed, and the country swept past hi lines of trees by the roadside, he saw field after field flit by, and the distant hills went slowly along out of the line of his vision Hitherto he hadthe road, nor had he seen any cattle of any kind His efforts to arrest the ass had been fruitless, and he gave theet assistance He remembered that the road had no towns or inns between Paestuan to fear that he would be carried all the way to the latter place before he could stop