Immediately in front of the cookhouse and the mule was one
of these cesspools, our billets here being on a farm. It happened that
when Scotty was peeling his potatoes that day, he had thrown them so
close to the fire that they got thoroughly heated. He hastily gathered
them up and threw them in a pan which he handed to Tompkins, the man who
had charge of the mules and who had entered into the agreement with him;
the driver was still on the animal's back. When the mule stuck his nose
into the hot peelings he jerked backwards into the door of the
cookhouse, the driver's back struck the wall over the entrance and he
was shot clean off the mule's back head-foremost into the cesspool 10
feet away. When I say that the bone-grinding department of a stockyard's
plant is pleasant compared to the odor of the mixture contained in the
cesspool, some idea will be had of the driver's condition when he was
pulled out by Tompkins. In the meantime, Scotty was standing in the
cookhouse, laughing his sides out at the driver's plight, and he had
forgotten to notice that the mule was backing further and further into
the room.
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