Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/183

 do nothing else; and, being stronger than the youngster, will often injure it by crowding up against it. The old mules of a train know their business perfectly well. They need no one to show them where their place is when the evening's "feed" is to be apportioned on the canvas, and in every way deport themselves as sedate, prim, well-behaved members of society, from whom all vestiges of the frivolities of youth have been eradicated. They never wander far from the sound of the bell, and give no trouble to the packers "on herd."

But a far different story must be told of the inexperienced, skittish young mule, fresh from the blue grass of Missouri or Nebraska. He is the source of more profanity than he is worth, and were it not that the Recording Angel understands the aggravation in the case, he would have his hands full in entering all the "cuss words" to which the green pack-mule has given rise. He will not mind the bell, will wander away from his comrades on herd, and in sundry and divers ways demonstrates the perversity of his nature. To contravene his maliciousness, it is necessary to mark him in such a manner that every packer will see at a glance that he is a new arrival, and thereupon set to work to drive him back to his proper place in his own herd. The most certain, as it is the most convenient way to effect this, is by neatly roaching his mane and shaving his tail so that nothing is left but a pencil or tassel of hair at the extreme end. He is now known as a "shave-tail," and everybody can recognize him at first sight. His sedate and well-trained comrade is called a "bell-sharp."

These terms, in frontier sarcasm, have been transferred to officers of the army, who, in the parlance of the packers, are known as "bell-sharps" and "shave-tails" respectively; the former being the old captain or field-officer of many "fogies," who knows too much to be wasting his energies in needless excursions about the country, and the latter, the youngster fresh from his studies on the Hudson, who fondly imagines he knows it all, and is not above having people know that he does. He is a "shave-tail"—all elegance of uniform, spick-span new, well groomed, and without sense enough to come in for "feed" when the bell rings. On the plains these two classes of very excellent gentlemen used to be termed "coffee-coolers" and "goslings."

There are few more animated sights than a pack-train at the