It made his stomach grumble in protest to think the mule was eating, and here he was worrying about her with an empty belly of his own.

[I]t was Captain Tod Halsey who had the responsibility of the whole thing. If the great marble shaft couldn't be dragged up the face of the bluff, the squint-eyed old river runner would be the loser.

'Be gone tartlets! Your feminine charms hold no power over me,' he said, […]

The eighth step in the pathway is conversion of boschnaloside to 8-epideoxy loganic acid which involves hydroxylation/oxidation reaction.