66 Recreations of a Sportsman 



Clancy, clinging to Old Joe, leaned over the 

 two and stared. 



" Did n't I tell you, kid," he said faintly, 

 " Grubville was at the end of the lane? " 



" She 's a stayer, I '11 be dogged if she ain't," 

 he continued, disappointed that the child did 

 not look up. 



" You bet," replied Mrs. Old Joe, lifting a 

 handkerchief on the other side and displaying 

 the bronzed intaglio of her own babe's face. 



It was many a day before Clancy saw the 

 child again; a few hours later he was in a deli- 

 rium. Old Joe brought the surgeon from the 

 government reservation, and for weeks the man 

 struggled for life. But one day, when the sun 

 came pouring down into the canon, Mrs. Old 

 Joe placed the child in his arms, and Clancy 

 knew that he had accomplished the impossible. 

 A runner was sent over the mountains to Sierra 

 with the news, and one morning when the snow 

 had gone, when great mounds of green went 

 tumbling eternally away to the distant sea, a 

 queer outfit crawled slowly up the divide that 

 looked down on the valley of Sierra Vista; first 

 came Clancy, leading a burro upon which sat 

 Mrs. Old Joe, hired on a life lease as nurse in 

 perpetuity by the miners of Sierra Vista, look- 

 ing more like Buddha than ever, and holding 

 the child ; while behind, mounted on a mule, rode 

 Old Joe with his own papoose. As they reached 



