ith a curly red beard, and was exceedingly chipper and jocular for
one in his condition. He had been out of food for some days, and had
been living on squirrels, ground-hogs, and such other small deer as
he could kill and roast along his way. He brought word of
considerable suffering among the outfits behind us, reporting "The
Dutchman" to be entirely out of beans and flour, while others had
lost so many of their horses that all were in danger of starving to
death in the mountains.

As he warmed up on coffee and beans, he became very amusing.

He was hairy and ragged, but neat, and his face showed a certain
delicacy of physique. He, too, was a marked example of the craze to
"get somewhere where gold is." He broke off suddenly in the midst of
his story to exclaim with great energy: "I want to do two things, go
back and get my boy away from my wife, and break the back of my
brother-in-law. He made all the trouble."

Once and again he said, "I'm going to find the gold up here or lay my
bones on the hills."

In the midst of these intense phrases he whistled gayly or broke off
to attend to his cooking. He told of his hard experiences, with pride
and joy, and said, "Isn't it lucky I caught you just here?" and
seemed willing to talk all night.

In the morning I went over to the campfire to see if he were still
with us. He was sitting in his scanty bed before the fire, mending
his trousers. "I've just got to put a patch on right now or my
knee'll be through," he explained. He had a neat little kit of
materials and everything was in order. "I haven't time to turn the
edges of the patch under," he went on. "It ought to be done--you
can't make a durable patch unless you do. This 'housewife' my wife
made me when we was first married. I was peddlin' then in eastern
Oregon. If it hadn't been for her brother--oh, I'll smash his face
in, some day"--he held up the other trouser leg: "See that patch?
Ain't that a daisy?--that's the way I ought to do. Say, looks like I
ought to rustle enough grub out of all these outfits to last me into
Glenora, don't it?"

We came down gracefully--we could not withstand such prattle. The
blacksmith turned in some beans, the boys from Manchester divided
their scanty store of flour and bacon, I brought some salt, some
sugar, and some oatmeal, and as the small man put it away he chirped
and chuckled like a cricket. His thanks were mere words, his voice
was calm. He accepted our aid as a matter of co