The two men waited with breathless interest.

With an air of accepting the responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled and trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor of the canyon below.
Laughing, the men followed--but far enough in the rear to permit their leader to choose his own way when they should reach the wagon road at the foot of the mountain wall.

Without an instant's hesitation, Croesus turned down the road--quickening his pace, almost, into a trot.
"By George!" ejaculated the novelist, "he acts like he knew where he was going." "He's taking you at your word," returned the artist.

"Look at him go! Evidently, he's still under the inspiration of your oratory." The burro had broken into a ridiculous, little gallop that caused the frying-pan and coffee-pot, lashed on the outside of the pack, to rattle merrily.

Splashing through the creek, he disappeared in the dark shadow of a thicket of alders and willows, where the road crosses a tiny rivulet that flows from a spring a hundred yards above.