team had breakfasted, but not he. A Ralstonite does not load up his
stomach at dawn after the manner of cattle, and such pious substitutes for
a cup of coffee as are permitted the faithful cannot always be had for a
price. At Indian Creek he hauled up to water his team, and to make for
himself a cinnamon-colored decoction by boiling in hot water a preparation
of parched grains which he carried with him. This he accomplished in an
angle of the old corral fence out of the wind. There is no comfort nor
even virtue in eating cold dust with one's sandwiches. Leander sunk his
great white tushes through the thick slices of whole-wheat bread and
tasted the paste of peanut meal with which they were spread. He ate
standing and slapped his leg to warm his driving hand.

A flutter of something colored, as a garment, caught his eye, directing it
to the shape of a man, rolled in an old blue blanket, lying motionless in
a corner of the tumble-down wall. "Drunk, drunk as a hog!" pronounced
Leander. For no man in command of himself would lie down to sleep in such
a place. As if to refute this accusation, the wind turned a corner of the
blanket quietly off a white face with closed eyelids,--an old, worn,
gentle face, appealing in its homeliness, though stamped now with the
dignity of death. Leander knelt and handled the body tenderly. It was long
before he satisfied himself that life was still there. Another case for
Polly and the Springs. A man worth saving, if Leander knew a man; one of
the trustful, trustworthy sort. His heart went out to him on the instant
as to a friend from home.

It was closing in for dusk when he reached the Ferry. Jimmy was away, and
Han, in high dudgeon, brought the boat over in answer to Leander's hail.
He had grouse to dress for supper, inconsiderately flung in upon him at
the last moment by the stage, four hours late.