Adolph is four years old and weighs one ton. He has a frowning and
fearsome front and the spirit of a friendly puppy. The Arrowhead force
loafed about in the corral and imparted of its own lore to the
veterinary while he took Adolph's temperature. Then Adolph, after nosing
three of the men to have his head rubbed, went to stand in the
rush-grown pool at the far end of the corral, which the gallery took to
mean that he still had a bit of fever, no matter what the glass thing
said.
The veterinary opposed a masterly silence to this majority diagnosis,
and in the absence of argument about it there seemed nothing left for
the Arrowhead retainers but the toil for which they were paid. They went
to it lingeringly, one by one, seeming to feel that perhaps they wronged
the ailing Adolph by not staying there to talk him over.
Uncle Abner, who is the Arrowhead blacksmith, was the last to leave--or
think of leaving--though he had mule shoes to shape and many mules to
shoe. He glanced wistfully again at Adolph, in cool water to his knees,
tugged at his yellowish-white beard, said it was a dog's life, if any
one should ask me, and was about to slump mournfully off to his
shop--when his eye suddenly brightened.
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