If you don't want me, I won't commit susancide." "That's a capital joke, Joshua," said Joe.

"Her name is Susan, isn't it ?" "Have I made a joke?
Waal, I didn't go to do it." "It is unconscious wit, Mr.Bickford," said Kellogg.
"Pooty good joke, ain't it ?" said Joshua complacently.

"Susan-cide, and her name is Susan.

Ho! ho! I never thought on't." And Joshua roared in appreciation of the joke which he had unwittingly perpetrated, for it must be explained that he thought susan-cide the proper form of the word expressing a voluntary severing of the vital cord.
Years afterward, when Joshua found himself the center of a social throng, he was wont to say, "Ever heard that joke I made about Susan ?" and then he would cite it amid the plaudits of his friends.
Mr.Bickford and Joe had not disposed of their horses.

They had suffered them to forage in the neighborhood of the river, thinking it possible that the time would come when they would require them.
One fine morning they set out from the camp near the banks of the Yuba and set their faces in a southwesterly direction.