GABRIEL CONROY, 
simultaneously, but with different inflection 
and significance — one fiercely, another 
gloomily, another stupidly, another mechan- 
ically. The woman with the blanket baby 
explained to it, “he says 'nothing,’” and 
laughed. 
“ No — ^nothing,” repeated the speaker. 
‘ Yesterday’s snow blocked up the old trail 
again. The beacon on the summit’s burnt 
**«ut. I left a notice at the Divide. Do that 
again, Dumphy, and I’ll knock the top of 
your d d head off.” 
Dumphy, the red-haired man, had rudely 
shoved and stricken the woman with the baby 
— she was his wife, and this conjugal act 
may have been partly habit — as she was 
crawling nearer the speaker. She did not 
seem to notice the blow or its giver — the 
apathy with which these people received 
blows or slights was more terrible than 
wrangling — ^but said, assuringly, when she 
had reached the side of the young man : 
“ To-morrow, then ? ” 
The face of the young man softened as 
he made the same reply he had made for 
the last eight days to the same question : 
“ To-morrow, surely ! ” 
She crawled away, still holding the effigy 
of her deadbabv vervxarefullv. and retreated 
“ They’re both interlopers, any way.” 
“Jonahs.” 
“ Said no good could come of it, ever since 
we picked him up.” 
“ But the Cap’n invited the ol’ Doctor, 
and took all his stock at Sweetwater, and 
Ashley put in his provisions with the rest.” 
The speaker was McCormick. Some- 
where in the feeble depths of his conscious- 
ness there was still a lingering sense of jus- 
tice. He was hungry, but not unreasonable. 
Besides, he remembered with a tender regret 
the excellent quality of provision that Ashley 
had furnished 
“ What’s that got to do with it ? ” screamed 
Mrs. Brackett. “ He brought the bad luck 
with him. Ain’t my husband dead, and, 
isn’t that skunk — an entire stranger — still 
livin’ ? ” 
The voice was masculine, but the logic 
was feminine. In cases of great prostration 
with mental debility, in the hopeless vacuity 
that precedes death by inanition or starva- 
tion, it is sometimes very effective. They 
all assented to it, and by a singular intellect- 
ual harmony the expression of each was the 
same. It was simply “ G d d n him !” 
“ What are you goin’ to do ? ” 
“ If I was a man,._rd know !” 
on ye take his place ? Why do you trust 
your lives and the lives of women to that thar 
Ashley ? ” she continued, with her voice raised 
to a strident bark. 
The hysterical young man, Henry Conroy, 
who sat next to her, turned a wild, scared 
face upon her, and then, as if fearful of being 
dragged into the conversation, disappeared 
hastily after Mrs. Dumphy. 
Ashley shrugged his shoulders and, re- 
plying to the group, rather than any indi- 
vidual speaker, said curtly : 
“ There’s but one chance — equal for all — 
open to all. You know what it is. To stay 
here is death ; to go, cannnot be worse than 
that.” 
He rose and walked slowly away up the 
canon a few rods to where another mound 
was visible, and disappeared from their view. 
When he had gone, a querulous chatter went 
around the squatting circle. 
“ Gone to see the old Doctor and the gal. 
We’re no account.” 
“ Thar’s two too many in this yer party.” 
“ Yes — the crazy Doctor and Ashley.” 
confidence they sat and wagged their heads 
together like two unmatched but hideous 
Chinese idols. 
“ Look at his strenth ! and he not a workin’ 
man like us,” said Dumphy. “ Don’t tell me 
he don’t get suthin reg’lar. ” 
“ Suthin what ? ” 
“Suthin TO EAT !” 
But it is impossible to convey even by 
capitals the intense emphasis put upon this 
verb. It was followed by a horrible pause. 
“ Let’s go and see.” 
“ And kill him,” suggested the gentle Mrs. 
Brackett. 
They all rose with a common interest al- 
most like enthusiasm. But after they had 
tottered a few steps, they fell. Yet even 
then there was not enough self-respect left 
among them to feel any sense of shame or 
mortification in their baffled design. They 
stopped, all except Dumphy. 
“ Wot’s that dream you was talkin’ ’bout 
jess now?” said Mr. McCormick, sitting 
down and abandoning the enterprise with 
the most shameless indifference. 
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