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196 in tryin' to whirl around, so as to get a good grab at 'em, he fell off the log heels over head. He rolled over and over on the ground three or four times, and then jumped back on the log and went for the honey, uglier nor ever. I thought I had had fun enough watchin' on him up to that time, and I had better save him and the rest of the honey at the same time. So I jest drawed a bead on him with old Grim, and he rolled off that bee-gum deader nor he'd been struck by lightnin'. And would you believe it, ladies and gentlemen, that d—d bar never seen me at all, but thinks to this minnit that 'twas them ar bees that stung him to death!"

Up from the depths of the deep canon, over on the other side of the narrow valley, at the foot of the hill, comes a long-drawn bugle-call, and I turn drowsily over and gaze in that direction, half impressed with the idea that I shall see again the long-drawn lines and glancing arms of the Guard of Jalisco filing through the barrancas at the foot of the volcano of Colima. But there rises no smoke from the summit of yonder mountain—the volcanic fires died out ages and ages ago in the crater of St. Helena, and I look in vain down the winding valley for the green palanquin, with the grey-haired statesman and wanderer in many lands, borne by white-clad Aztecs, and the gallant Zomeli, the beau sabreur of Guadalajara, riding at the head of his squadrons of swarthy horsemen. I am not in the tropics after all, though dreaming of them; and it is the madrono, not the palm, whose green leaves rustle so gently in the sweet spring air above me.