was, as a yaller dog.--Out! Git out from here--the pack of yez! Han, shut
the dure an' drive thim bloody curs off the piazzy. They're trackin' up
the whole place.--As I was sayin', sor, there he stayed hunched up in the
wind, waitin' on the chanst of a team comin', and I seen he was an ould
daddy. I stud the sight of him as long as I cud, me comin' and goin'. He
fair wore me out. So I tuk the boat over for 'im. One of his arrums he
couldn't lift from the shoulder, and I give him a h'ist wit' his bundle.
Faith, it was light! 'Twinty years a-getherin',' he cackles, slappin' it.
'Ye've had harrud luck,' I says. ''T is not much of a sheaf ye are packin'
home.' 'That's as ye look at it,' he says.

"I axed him what way was he goin'. He was thinking to get a lift as far as
Oriana, if the stages was runnin' on that road. 'Then ye 'll have to bide
here till morning,' I says, 'for ye must have met the stage goin' the
other way.' 'I met nothing,' says he; 'I come be way of the
bluffs,'--which is a strange way for one man travelin' afoot.

"The grub was on the table, and I says, 'Sit by and fill yourself up.' His
cheeks was fallin' in wit' the hunger. With that his poor ould eye begun
to water. 'Twas one weak eye he had that was weepin' all the time. 'I've
got out of the habit of reg'lar aitin',' he says. 'It don't take much to
kape me goin'.' 'Niver desave yourself, sor! 'T is betther feed three
hungry men than wan "no occasion."' His appetite it grew on him wit' every
mouthful. There was a boundless emptiness to him. He lay there on the
bench and slep' the rest of the evening, and I left him there wit' a big
fire at night. And the next day at noon we h'isted him up beside of Joe
Stratton. A rip-snorter of a wind was blowin' off the Silver City peaks.
His face was drawed like a winter apple, but he wint off happy. I think he
was warm inside of himself."