Part 20 (1/2)

”You'll be getting a large hump on yourself, Han, me boy. 'T is a cash crowd we have here--and a lady, by me sowl!” Thus Jimmy exhorted his household. Times were looking up. They would be a summer resort before the Ditch went through; it should be mentioned in the Ditch company's prospectus. Jimmy had put his savings into land-office fees and had a hopeful interest in the Ditch.

A spur in the head is worth two in the heel. Without a word from ”the boss” Han had found time to shave and powder and polish his brown forehead and put on his whitest raiment over his baggiest trousers.

There was loud panic among the fowls in the corral. The cat had disappeared; the jealous dogs hung about the doors and were pushed out of the way by friends of other days.

Seated by the office fire, Paul was conferring with Jimmy, who was happy with a fresh pipe and a long story to tell to a patient and paying listener. He rubbed the red curls back from his s.h.i.+ning forehead, took the pipe from his teeth, and guided a puff of smoke away from his auditor.

”I seen him settin' over there on his blankets,”--he pointed with his pipe to the opposite sh.o.r.e plainly visible through the office windows,--”but he niver hailed me, so I knowed he was broke. Some, whin they're broke, they holler all the louder. Ye would think they had an appointment wit' the Governor and he sint his car'iage to meet them. But he was as humble, he was, as a yaller dog.--Out! Git out from here--the pack of yez! Han, shut the dure an' drive thim b.l.o.o.d.y 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 appet.i.te 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.”

”Did you ask him his name?”

”Sure. Why not? John Treagar he called himself.”

”Treagar? Hagar, you mean!”

”It was Treagar he said.”

”John Hagar is the man I am looking for.”

”Treagar--Hagar? 'T is comin' pretty close to it.”

”About what height and build was he?”

”He was not to say a tall man; and he wasn't so turrible short neither.

His back was as round as a Bible. A kind of pepper and saltish beard he had, and his hair was blacker than his beard but white in streaks.”

”A _dark_ man, was he?”

”He would be a _dark_ man if he was younger.”

”The man I want is blue-eyed.”

”His eyes was blue--a kind of washed-out gray that maybe was blue wanst; and one of them always weepin' wit' the cold.”

”And light brown hair mixed with gray, like sand and ashes--mostly ashes; and a thin straggling beard, thinner on the cheeks? A high head and a tall stooping figure--six feet at least; hands with large joints and a habit of picking at them when”--

”Ye are goin' too fast for me now, sor. He was not that description of a man, nayther the height nor the hair of him. Sure't is a pity for ye comin' this far, and him not the man at all. Faith, I wish I was the man meself! I wonder at Joe Stratton anyhow! He's a very hasty man, is Joe.

He jumps in wit' both feet, so he does. I could have told ye that.”