He concluded about midnight, after a very noisy time and
interviews with everyone on sight (slightly interrupted by drinks)
concerning "his room." It was show time, you see, and all the rooms
were as full as he was--he was too full even to share the parlour or
billiard room with others; but he consented at last to a shake-down on
the balcony, the barmaid volunteering to spread the couch with her own
fair hands.
Towards daylight he woke, for one of the reasons why men do wake. It
is well known, to people who know, that old campers-out (and young men
new to it, too) will wake _once_--if in a party, each at
different times--to tend to their cattle, or listen for the hobbles of
their horses, or simply to rise on their elbows and have a look
round--the last, I suppose, from an instinct born in old dangerous
times. Mac woke up, and it was dark. He reached out and his hand
fell, instinctively, on the rail of the balcony, which was to him
(instinctively--and that shows how instinct errs) the rail of the side
of his wagon, in which as I have said, he was wont to sleep. So he
drew himself up on his knees and to his feet, with the instinctive
intention of getting down to (say) put some chaff and corn in the
feed-bags stretched across the shafts for the horses; for he intended,
by instinct, to make an early start. Which shows how instinct can
never be trusted to travel with memory, but will get ahead of it--or
behind it. (Say it was instinct mixed with or adulterated by drink.
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