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24 
GABRIEL CONRO K 
thus gave him an opportunity of exhibiting 
his special faculty. 
“ Oily,” he t said, after an airy preliminary 
toss, “ would ye like to have a nice dolly?” 
Oily opened her wide hungry eyes in 
hopeful anticipation and nodded assent. 
“ A nice dolly with a real mamma,” he 
continued, “who plays with it like a true 
baby. Would ye like to help her play with 
it ? ” 
The idea of a joint partnership of this 
kind evidently pleased Oily by its novelty. 
“Well then, brother Gabe will get you 
one. But Gracey will have to go away so 
that the doll’s mamma kin come.” 
Oily at first resented this, but eventually 
succumbed to novelty, after the fashion of 
her sex, starving or otherwise. Yet she 
prudently asked : 
“ Is it ever hungry?” 
“It is never hungry,” replied Gabriel, 
confidently. 
“ Oh ! ” said Oily, with an air of relief. 
Then Gabriel, the cunning, sought Mrs. 
Dumphy, the mentally alienated. 
“ You are jest killin’ of yourself with the 
tendin’ o’ that child,” he said, after bestow- 
ing a caress on the blanket and slightly 
pinching an imaginary cheek of the effigy. 
“ It would be likelier and stronger fur a 
playmate. Good gracious! how thin it is 
gettin’. A change will do it good ; fetch it 
to Oily, and let her help you tend it until — 
until — to-morrow.” To-morrow was the ex- 
treme limit of Mrs. Dumphy’s future. 
So Mrs. Dumphy and her effigy were in- 
stalled in Grace’s place, and Oily was made 
happy. A finer nature or a more active 
imagination than Gabriel’s would have re- 
volted at this monstrous combination; but 
Gabriel only saw that they appeared con- 
tented, and the first pressing difficulty of 
Grace’s absence was overcome. So alter- 
nately they took care of the effigy, the child 
simulating the cares of the future and losing 
the present in them, the mother living in the 
memories of the past. Perhaps it might 
have been pathetic to have seen Oily and 
Mrs. Dumphy both saving the infinitesimal 
remnants of their provisions for the doll, but 
the only spectator was one of the actors, 
Gabriel, who lent himself to the deception ; 
and pathos to be effective must be viewed 
from the outside. 
At noon that day the hysterical young 
man, Gabriel’s cousin, died. Gabriel went 
over to the -other hut and endeavored to 
cheer the survivors. He succeeded in infect- 
ing them so far with his hopefulness as to 
loosen the tongue and imagination of the 
story-teller, but at four o’clock the body had 
not yet been buried. 
It was evening, and the three were sitting 
over the embers, when a singular change 
came over Mrs. Dumphy. The effigy sud- 
denly slipped from her hands, and, looking 
up, Gabriel perceived that her arms had 
dropped to her side, and that her eyes were 
fixed on vacancy. He spoke to her, but 
she made no sign nor response of any kind. 
He touched her, and found her limbs rigid 
and motionless. Oily began to cry. 
The sound seemed to agitate Mrs. Dum- 
phy. Without moving a lirpb, she said, in 
a changed, unnatural voice : 
“Hark!” 
Oily choked her sobs at a sign from 
Gabriel. 
“They’re coming!” said Mrs. Dumphy. 
“Which?” said Gabriel. 
“ The relief party.” 
“ Where?” 
“ Far, far away. They’re jest setting out. 
I see ’em — a dozen men with pack horses 
and provisions. The leader is an Ameri- 
can — the others are strangers. They’re 
coming — but far, oh, so far away ! ” 
Gabriel fixed his eyes upon her but did 
not speak. After a death-like pause, she 
went on : 
“ The sun is shining, the birds are singing, 
the grass is springing where they ride — but, 
oh, so far — too far away ! ” 
“ Do you know them ? ” asked Gabriel. 
“ No.” 
“ Do they know us ? ” 
“No.” 
“ Why do they come, and how do they 
know where we are ? ” asked Gabriel. 
“ Their leader has seen us.” 
“ Where ? ” 
“ In a dream.” * 
Gabriel whistled and looked at the rag 
baby. He was willing to recognize some- 
thing abnormal, and perhaps even prophetic, 
in this insane woman; but a coincident ex- 
altation in a stranger who was not suffering 
from the illusions produced by starvation 
*1 fear I must task the incredulous reader’s further 
patience by calling attention to what may perhaps 
prove the most literal and thoroughly attested fact 
of this otherwise fanciful chronicle. The condition 
and situation of the ill-famed “ Donner Party ” — then 
an unknown, unheralded cavalcade of emigrants — 
starving in an unfrequented pass of the Sierras, was 
first made known to Captain Yount of Napa, in a 
dream. The Spanish records of California show that 
the relief party which succored the survivors was 
projected upon this spiritual information. 
