They go out
of sight for seconds at the time--'Shall we gather by the river, the
beautiful, the beautiful Squaw River?'--I reckon."
We did. Everybody seemed surprised at seein' everybody else.
"Just come out for a picnic, friends?" says Ag.
"Oh, yes," says everybody. "Great old day and nice spot here--tired of
town--thought we'd make a holiday."
"Good, good," says Aggy, his honest face gleamin' with joy. "Let's all
eat now and swop maps afterward."
Things kind of stopped for a minute. If a man was unhitchin' a mule,
he waited till you could count 1, 2, 3, and then continnered.
"What d'ye mean by 'map'?" says one lad, bent under a horse to hide his
face.
"What do I mean?" says Ag, offended. "Why, I mean just what Noah
Webster meant when the dove came back bringin' the definition to his
ark. I mean map--m-a-p, map--a drawin' that shows you the way to get
to a red cross that doesn't exist on the face of nature. I like green
crosses as a matter of taste, but all our paralysed friend had left was
a red one, so I took that, not to be unsociable."
I've been at pleasanter lookin' picnics.
Finally the feller under the horse did some deep thinkin' and come out.
"Have you honest got a map?" says he.
"To the Lost Injun mine? 'Heigh-o, the Lost Injun!'" sings Aggy.
"Here she is, my friend, with all dips, angles, and variations; one
million feet on the main lode; his heirs, assigns, orphans.
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