"We don't need hardening!" she snarled. "Do you understand that!"
I comprehended that at once. But I forced a sickly smile and skipped
forward in the wake of my mule, with something of the same abandon
which characterizes the flight of an unwelcome dog.
In the terrified ear of Kitten I voiced my doubts concerning the
prospects of a pleasant journey.
We marched in the following order: Arthur, the heavily laden mule,
led; then came Kitten Brown and myself, all hung over with stew-pans,
shotguns, rifles, cartridge-belts, ponchos, and the toilet reticules of
the ladies; then marched the Reverend Dr. Jones, and, in order, filing
behind her, Miss Dingleheimer, Mrs. Batt, Miss McFadden, and Miss
White--the latter in her trained nurse's costume and wearing a red cross
on her sleeve--an idea of Mrs. Batt, who believed in emergency methods.
Mrs. Batt also bore a banner, much interfered with by the foliage,
bearing the inscription:
EQUAL RIGHTS!
EUGENICS OR EXTERMINATION!
After a while she shouted:
"Guide! Here, you may carry this banner for a while! I'm tired."
Kitten and I took turns with it after that. It was hard work,
particularly as one by one in turn they came up and hung their parasols
and shopping reticules all over us.
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