José — page 41: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

34 JOSE. had formed a wide circle; and, judging by the occasional outbursts of laughter and loud shouts, was hugely enjoying some novel spectacle. In the open center of the circle a sturdy freighter was waging a heroic contest with a small refractory mule of the most graceful proportions, but of a stub- born spirit, in the fruitless effort to adjust a bit and bridle, the crowd lustily cheering every successful attempt of the intolerable brute to evade captivity. “D—— the beast! He’s got the devil in him!” ex- claimed the freighter, in wretched English, dealing the animal a cut with the bridle that caused him to launch out his heels in every direction, and only restrained by a lasso that threatened to cut off his wind. The fruitless efforts of the mule tamer had at- tracted the attention of a young beardless fellow who lay extended on the landing of a wooden stair- way along the outside wall of the lodging-house. The youth wore a soft felt hat jauntily pressed upon his short-cropped, black hair, and had been watch- ing the proceedings with evident interest. The freighter, irritated by the jeers of the crowd, momentarily desisted, and looking up, exclaimed: “Tf there’s a Yankee or an Irishman in the crowd who thinks he can handle the brute, I wish he’d step forward. Anybody can laugh, and I reckon Dutch Bill knows his business as well as the next man.” “He must be a Mormon!” exclaimed a voice in the crowd, and the remark was greeted with a gen- eral shout of laughter. “T reckon so!” answered the first speaker, push- ing his broad hat back from his weather-beaten face, iis morose expression gradually relaxing into Eomichookssco m