Kitabı oku: «They of the High Trails», sayfa 8

Her smile was less mocking, her jests less pointed, as she sat at Mrs. Finnegan's long table and ate boiled beef and cabbage and drank the simmered hay which they called tea. She was opposite Kelley this time, and could study him to better advantage.

Kelley, on his part, was still very uneasy. The girl's uncanny penetration had pressed so clearly to the heart of his secret that he feared the hours which remained. "I'm at the end of my rope," he inwardly admitted. "She'll catch me sure unless I can get away from her."

Nevertheless, he wondered a little and was a trifle chagrined when the girl suddenly turned from him to her brother. He was a little uneasy thereat, for he was certain she would draw from the youngster some admissions that would lead to a full confession.

As a matter of fact, she sought her brother's knowledge of Kelley. "Tell me about him, Fred. Where did you meet him first? He interests me."

"Well," Morse answered, cautiously, "I don't know exactly. I used to see him come down the hill of an evening after his mail, and I kind of took a shine to him and he did to me. At least that's what he said afterward. He has had a wonderful career. He's been all over Arizona and New Mexico alone. He's been arrested for a bandit and almost killed as city marshal, and he has been associated with a band of cattle-rustlers. Oh, you should get him talking. He nearly died of thirst in the desert once, and a snake bit him in the Navajo country, and he lay sick for weeks in a Hopi town."

"What a singular life! Is he satisfied with it?"

"He says he is. He declares he is never so happy as when he is leading a pack-horse across the range."

"I don't wonder you like him," she said, thoughtfully. "But you should do your part. Don't let him be always the giver and you the taker. I'm afraid you shirk on him a little, Fred."

"Why? What makes you think that?"

"Well, your hands are pretty soft for a working miner."

He met her attack bravely. "You don't suppose we do all the pick work in the mine, do you?"

"No. I don't see how you could possibly do any of it. Come now, Freddy, ''fess up.' You've been playing the gentleman in this enterprise and all this make-up is for our benefit, isn't it?"

Young Morse saw that the safest plan was to admit the truth of her surmise. "Oh, well, I never did have any hand in the actual mining, but then there is plenty of other work to be done."

Her answer was sharp and clear: "Well, then, do it! Don't be a drone."

Something very plain and simple and boyish came out in the young gambler as he walked and talked with his mother and sister, and Kelley regarded him with some amazement and much humor. It only proved that every man, no matter how warlike he pretends to be in public, is in private a weak, sorry soul, dependent on some one; and this youth, so far from being a desperado, was by nature an affectionate son and a loyal brother.

Furthermore, Kelley himself felt very much less the tramp and much more "like folks" than at any time since leaving home ten or fifteen years before. He was careful to minimize all his hobo traits and to correspondingly exalt his legitimate mining and cattle experiences, although he could see that Morse had made Florence curious about the other and more adventurous side of his career.

Florence was now determined to make a study of the town. "I like it up here," she said, as she looked down over the tops of the houses. "It interests me, Fred; I propose that you keep us all night."

"Oh, we can't do that!" exclaimed her brother, hastily. "We haven't room."

"Well, there's a hotel, I should hope."

"A hotel – yes. But it is a pretty bad hotel. You see, it's sort of run down – like the town."

This did not seem to disturb her. Rather, it added to her interest. "No matter. We can stand it one night. I want to see the place. I would like to see a little of its street life to-night. It's all so new and strange to me."

Kelley, perceiving that she was determined upon this stop-over, and fearing that the attempt to railroad her out of town on the afternoon train might add to her suspicions, then said:

"I think we can find a place for you if you feel like staying."

Morse was extremely uneasy, and Florence remarked upon it. "You don't seem overflowing with hospitality, Fred. You don't seem anxious to have us stay on for another day."

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Well, it's a pretty rough old village, Flo – a pretty rough place for you and mother."

"We are not alarmed so long as we have you and Mr. Kelley as our protectors," she replied, smiling sweetly upon Tall Ed.

They had reached the car-line by this time, and were standing looking down the valley, and Fred, pulling out his watch, remarked: "You just have time to make that three-o'clock train. That will connect you with the night express for Los Angeles."

"Fred, what's the matter with you?" queried his sister, sharply. "You seem absolutely determined to get rid of us at once." Then, seeing that she had perhaps gone a little too far, she said, with a smile, "Mother, isn't he the loving son?"

The youth surrendered to her will and dropped all opposition. He appeared to welcome their decision to wait over another day; but Kelley busied himself with thinking how he could ward off any undesired information which might approach the two women – the mother especially. It would be quite wonderful if, with another twenty-four hours to spend, Florence did not get Fred's secret from him.

He decided to put the matter squarely before her, and when they took the car arranged to have her sit beside him in a seat across the aisle from the mother and son, and almost immediately began his explanation by saying, very significantly:

"I reckon the boy is right, Miss Morse. You had better take that three-o'clock train."

She faced him with instant appreciation of the change in his tone. "Why so?" she asked, fixing a clear and steady glance upon his face.

"It will be easier for him and better for – for all of us if you go. He wants to spare your mother from – "

She was quick to perceive his hesitation. "From what?" she asked. And as he did not at once reply she went on, firmly: "You might just as well tell me, Mr. Kelley. Fred's been up to some mischief. He's afraid, and you're afraid, we'll find out something to his disadvantage. Now tell me. Is it – is it – a woman?"

"No," said Kelley as decisively as he could. "So far as I know Fred's not tangled up that way."

Quick as a flash she took him up on his emphasized word. "In what way is he tangled up?"

Kelley, more and more amazed at her shrewdness and directness, decided to meet it with blunt candor. "Well, you see, it's like this. When he first came out here he struck a streak of hard luck and lost all he had. He was forced to go to work at anything he could get to earn money, and – you see, when a feller is down and out he's got to grab anything that offers – and so, when Dutch Pete took a liking to him and offered him a job, he just naturally had to take it."

"You mean he has been working at something we wouldn't like to know about?"

"That's the size of it."

"What is this job? It isn't working for you. You wouldn't ask him to do anything that would be disgraceful."

Kelley did not take time to appreciate this compliment. He made his plunge. "No. He has been working for – a saloon."

She showed the force of the blow by asking in a horrified tone, "You don't mean tending bar!"

"Oh no! Not so bad as that," replied Kelley. "Leastways it don't seem so bad to me. He's been rolling the marble in a roulette wheel."

She stared at him in perplexity. "I don't believe – I – I don't believe I understand what that is. Just tell me exactly."

"Well, he's been taking care of a roulette layout."

"You mean he has been gambling?"

"Well, no. He hasn't been gambling. At least, not lately. But he represents the house, you see. He is something like a dealer at faro and is on a salary."

She comprehended fully now – at least she comprehended enough to settle back into her seat with a very severe and somber expression on her face. "That's where his five per day comes from." She mused for a little while on this, and then suddenly another thought came to her: "What about his being your partner?"

Kelley saw that it was necessary to go the whole way, and he said, quietly: "That was all fixed up yesterday. You see, he wanted to save your mother and you, and he came to me – and wanted me to take him in as a partner, and – I did it."

"You mean a partner for a day?"

"Yes. He was mighty nervous about your coming, and I told him I would help him out. Of course, it didn't worry me none, and so I concluded I would do it."

Her face softened as she pondered upon this. "That was very good of you, Mr. Kelley."

"Oh no! You see, I kinda like the boy. And then we've been partners – side partners. We room together."

She looked out of the window, but she saw nothing of the landscape now. "I understand it all. You want me to take mother away before she finds out."

"'Pears like that is the best thing for you to do. It would hit her a good deal harder than it does you."

"It hits me hard enough," she replied. "To think of my brother running a gambling-machine in a saloon is not especially reassuring. You say he went into it to carry him over a hard place. I'm afraid you were saving my feelings in saying that, Mr. Kelley. How long has he been in this business?"

"A little less than a year."

"And you want me to go away without trying to get him out of this awful trade?"

"I don't see how you could safely try it. I think he is going to quit it himself. Your coming has been a terrible jolt to him. Now I'll tell you what you do. You take the old lady and pull out over the hill and I'll undertake to get the boy out of this gambling myself."

She was deeply affected by his quiet and earnest manner, and studied him with reflective glance before she said: "You're right. Mother must never know of this. She was brought up to believe that saloons and gambling were the devil's strongest lure for souls, and it would break her heart to know that Fred has become a gambler. I will do as you say, Mr. Kelley. I will take this train. But you must write me and tell me what you do. You will write, won't you?"

"Yes," replied Kelley, hesitatingly. "I'll write – but I ain't much of a fist at it. Of course, I may not make a go of my plan, but I think it will work out all right."

She reached her hand to him, as if to seal a compact, and he took it. She said: "I don't know who you are or what you are, Mr. Kelley. But you've been a loyal friend to my brother and very considerate of my mother and me, and I appreciate it deeply."

Kelley flushed under the pressure of her small fingers, and replied as indifferently as he could: "That's all right, miss. I've got a mother and a sister myself."

"Well, they'd be proud of you if they could know what you have done to-day," she said.

His face took on a look of sadness. "They might. But I'm glad they don't know all I've been through in the last ten years."

III

Morse was surprised, almost delighted, when his sister announced her decision to take the afternoon train. "That's right," he said. "You can stop on your way back in the spring. Perhaps Kelley and I will have our own house by that time."

The train was on the siding, nearly ready to start, and there was not much chance for further private conference, but Florence succeeded in getting a few final words with Kelley.

"I wish you would tell me what your plan is," she said. "You needn't if you don't want to."

Kelley seemed embarrassed, but concluded to reply. "It is very simple," said he. "I'm going to make him an actual partner in the mine. I'm going to deed him an interest, so that when you come back in the spring he won't have to lie about it."

Her glance increased his uneasiness. "I don't understand you, Mr. Kelley. You must love my brother."

He could not quite meet her glance as he answered. "Well, I wouldn't use exactly that word," he said, slowly, "but I've taken a great notion to him – and then, as I say, I have an old mother myself."

The bell on the engine began to ring, and she caught his hand in both of hers and pressed it hard. "I leave him in your hands," she said, and looked up at him with eyes that were wet with tears, and then in a low voice she added: "If I dared to I'd give you a good hug – but I daren't. Good-by – and be sure and write."

As they stood to watch the train climb the hill, Morse drew a deep sigh and said: "Gee! but Flo is keen! I thought one while she was going to get my goat. I wonder what made her change her mind all of a sudden?"

Kelley looked down at him somberly. "I did."

"You did? How?"

"I told her what you had really been working at."

The boy staggered under the force of this. "Holy smoke! Did you do that?"

"Sure I did. It was the only way to save that dear old mother of yours. I told your sister also that I was going to stop your white-marble exercise, and I'm going to do it if I have to break your back."

There was no mistaking the sincerity and determination of Kelley's tone, and the young man, so far from resenting these qualities, replied, meekly: "I want to get out of it, Ed. I've been saying all day that I must quit it. But what can I do?"

"I'll tell you my plan," said Kelley, with decision. "You've got to buy my interest in the mine."

Morse laughed. "But I haven't any money. I haven't three hundred dollars in the world."

"I'll take your note, provided your sister will indorse it, and she will."

The young fellow looked up at his tall friend in amazement which turned at last into amusement. He began to chuckle. "Good Lord! I knew you'd made a mash on Flo, but I didn't know it was mutual. I heard her say, 'be sure and write.'" He slapped Kelley on the back. "There'll be something doing when she comes back in the spring, eh?"

Kelley remained unmoved. "There will be if she finds you rolling that white marble."

"She won't. I'll take your offer. But what will you be doing?"

"Climbing some Alaska trail," replied Kelley, with a remote glance.

?

THE PROSPECTOR

– still pushes his small pack-mule through the snow of glacial passes seeking the unexplored, and therefore more alluring, mountain range.

VI
THE PROSPECTOR

Old Pogosa was seated in the shade of a farm-wagon, not far from the trader's store at Washakie, eating a cracker and mumbling to herself, when a white man in miner's dress spoke to her in a kindly voice and offered her an orange. She studied him with a dim, shining, suspicious gaze, but took the orange. Eugene, the grandson of her niece, stood beside the stranger, and he, too, had an orange.

"Tell her," said the white man, "that I want to talk with her about old days; that I am a friend of her people, and that I knew Sitting Bull and Bear Robe. They were great chiefs."

As these words were interpreted to the old witch, her mouth softened a little and, raising her eyes, she studied her visitor intently. At last she said: "Ay, he was a great chief, Sitting Bull. My cousin. I came to visit Shoshoni many moons ago. Never returned to my own people."

To this the miner replied, "They say your husband, Iapi, was one of the sheep-eaters exiled to the mountains?"

Her eyes widened. Her gaze deepened. She clipped her forefinger in sign of agreement. "It was very cold up there in winter. We were often hungry, for the game had all been driven to the plain and we could not follow. Many of our children died. All died but one."

The stranger, whose name was Wetherell, responded with a sigh: "My heart is heavy when I hear of it. Because you are old and have not much food I give you this money." And he handed her a silver dollar and walked away.

The next day, led by Eugene, Wetherell and Kelley, his partner, again approached the old Sioux, this time with a generous gift of beef.

"My brother, here, is paper-chief," he explained. "As a friend of the red people he wants to put in a book all the wrongs that the sheep-eaters suffered."

In this way the gold-seekers proceeded to work upon Pogosa's withered heart. Her mind was clouded with age, but a spark of her old-time cunning still dwelt there, and as she came to understand that the white men were eager to hear the story of the lost mine she grew forgetful. Her tongue halted on details of the trail. Why should not her tale produce other sides of bacon, more oranges, and many yards of cloth? Her memory wabbled like her finger – now pointing west, now north. At one time the exiles found the gold in the cabin in a bag – like shining sand; at another it lay in the sand like shining soldiers' buttons, but always it was very beautiful to look upon, and always, she repeated, the white men fled. No one slew them. They went hurriedly, leaving all their tools.

"She knows," exulted Wetherell. "She knows, and she's the one living Indian who can direct us." To Eugene he exclaimed: "Say to her pretty soon she's going to be rich – mebbe go home to Cheyenne River. If she shows us the trail we will take her to her own people."

Like a decrepit eagle the crone pondered. Suddenly she spoke, and her speech was a hoarse chant. "You are good to me. The bones of my children lie up there. I will go once more before I die."

Kelley was quick to take advantage of sunset emotion. "Tell her we will be here before sunrise. Warn her not to talk to any one." And to all this Eugene gave ready assent.

Wetherell slept very little that night, although their tent stood close beside the singing water of the Little Wind. They were several miles from the fort and in a lonely spot with only one or two Indian huts near, and yet he had the conviction that their plans and the very hour of their starting were known to other of the red people. At one moment he was sure they were all chuckling at the "foolish white men"; at another he shivered to think how easy it would be to ambush this crazy expedition in some of the deep, solitary defiles in those upper forests. "A regiment could be murdered and hidden in some of those savage glooms," said he to himself.

Kelley slept like a top, but woke at the first faint dawn, with the precision of an alarm-clock. In ten minutes he had the horses in, and was throwing the saddles on. "Roll out, Andy," he shouted. "Here comes Eugene."

Wetherell lent himself to the work with suddenly developed enthusiasm, and in half an hour the little train of laden animals was in motion toward the hills. Pogosa was waiting, squatted on the ground at some distance from her tepee. Slipping from his horse, he helped her mount. She groaned a little as she did so, but gathered up the reins like one resuming a long-forgotten habit. For years she had not ventured to mount a horse, and her withered knees were of small service in maintaining her seat, but she made no complaint.

Slowly the little train crawled up the trail, which ran for the most part along the open side of the slope, in plain view from below. At sunrise they were so well up the slope that an observer from below would have had some trouble in making out the character of the cavalcade. At seven o'clock they entered the first patch of timber and were hidden from the plain.

On the steep places, where the old squaw was forced to cling to her saddle, groaning with pain, the kindly Wetherell walked beside her, easing her down the banks. In crossing the streams he helped her find the shallowest fording, and in other ways was singularly considerate. Kelley couldn't have done this, but he saw the value of it.

"It's a hard trip and we've got to make it as easy for the old bird as we can."

"She's human," retorted Wetherell, "and this ride is probably painful for her, mentally as well as physically."

"I s'pose it does stir her up some," responded Kelley. "She may balk any minute and refuse to go. We'd better camp early."

A little later Eugene called out, "She says set tepee here." And Kelley consented.

Again it was Wetherell who helped her from her saddle and spread his pack for her to rest upon. He also brought a blanket and covered her as tenderly as if she were his own grandmother. "She's pretty near all in," he said, in palliation of this action. He took a pleasure in seeing her revive under the influence of hot food.

When she began to talk, Eugene laughingly explained: "She stuck on you. She say you good man. Your heart big for old Injun woman."

Kelley chuckled. "Keep it up, Andy," he called through the tent. "I leave all that business to you."

Pogosa's face darkened. She understood the laugh. "Send him away," she commanded Eugene, all of which made Kelley grin with pleasure.

The whole enterprise now began to take on poetry to Wetherell. The wilderness, so big, so desolate, so empty to him, was full of memories to this brown old witch. To her the rushing stream sang long-forgotten songs of war and the chase. She could hear in its clamor the voices of friends and lovers. This pathway, so dim and fluctuating, so indefinite to the white man, led straight into the heroic past for her. Perhaps she was treading it now, not for the meat and flannel which Kelley had promised her, but for the pleasure of reliving the past. She was young when her husband was banished. In these splendid solitudes her brave young hunter adventured day by day. Here beside one of these glorious streams her children were born in exile; here they suffered the snows of winter, the pests of summer; and here they had died one by one, till only she remained. Then, old and feeble, she had crawled back into the reservation, defiant of Washakie, seeking comfort as a blind dog returns to the fireside from which he has been cruelly spurned.

As she slept, the men spread a map on the ground, and for the hundredth time Wetherell measured the blank space lying between Bonneville Basin and Frémont's Peak marked "unexplored," and exclaimed:

"It's wonderful how a mountain country expands as you get into it. Don't look much on the map, but, gee! a fellow could spend ten years looking for this mine, and then be no better off than when he started."

"Yes," responded Kelley, "it's certainly up to you to cherish the old lady."

In the morning Wetherell dressed hastily and crept into the little tent where Pogosa lay. "How are you, granny?" he asked. She only shook her head and groaned.

"She say her back broke," Eugene interpreted.

A brisk rubbing with a liniment which he had brought from his kit limbered the poor, abused loins, and at last Pogosa sat up. She suddenly caught Wetherell's hand and drew it to her withered breast.

"Good white man," she cried out.

"Tell her I'll make her eyes well, too," he commanded Eugene. "The medicine will hurt a little, but it will make her eyes stronger to see the trail."

Kelley could not suppress his amusement as he watched Wetherell's operations. "You'll spoil gran'ma," he remarked. "She'll be discontented with the agency doctor. I'm not discouragin' your massage operations, mind you, but I can't help thinking that she'll want clean towels, and an osteopath to stroke her back every morning, when she goes back to her tepee."

"If she only holds out long enough to help us to find the mine she can have a trained nurse, and waiting-maid to friz her hair – if she wants it frizzed."

"You don't mean to let her in as a partner?"

"I certainly do! Isn't she enduring the agonies for us? I'm going to see that she is properly paid for it."

"A hunk of beef and plenty of blankets and flannel is all she can use; but first let's find the mine. We can quarrel over its division afterward."

"I doubt if we get her ahorse to-day. She's pretty thoroughly battered up."

"We must move, Andy. Somebody may trail us up. I want to climb into the next basin before night. Let me talk to her."

She flatly refused to move for Kelley, and Eugene said: "She too sick. Legs sick, back sick, eyes sick. Go no further."

Kelley turned to Wetherell. "It's your edge, Andy. She's balked on me."

Wetherell took another tack. He told her to rest. "By and by I'll come and rub your back again and fix your eyes. To-morrow you will feel strong and well." To this she made no reply.

All the day Kelley kept his eyes on the back trail, expecting each moment to see some dusky trailer break from the cover. As night began to fall it was Wetherell who brought a brand and built a little fire near the door to Pogosa's tent so that the flame might cheer her, and she uttered a sigh of comfort as its yellow glare lighted her dark tepee walls. He brought her bacon, also, and hot bread and steaming coffee, not merely because she was useful as a guide, but also because she was old and helpless and had been lured out of her own home into this gray and icy world of cloud.

"Eddie," he said, as he returned to his partner, "we're on a wild-goose chase. The thing is preposterous. There isn't any mine – there can't be such a mine!"

"Why not? What's struck you now?"

"This country has been traversed for a century. It is 'sheeped' and cattle-grazed and hunted and forest-ranged – "

Kelley waved his hand out toward the bleak crags which loomed dimly from amid the slashing shrouds of rain. "Traversed! Man, nobody ever does anything more than ride from one park to another. The mine is not in a park. It's on some of these rocky-timbered ridges. A thousand sheep-herders might ride these trails for a hundred years and never see a piece of pay quartz. It's a big country! Look at it now! What chance have we without Pogosa? Now here we are on our way, with a sour old wench who thinks more of a piece of bread than she does of a hunk of ore. It's up to you, Andy – you and your 'mash.'"

"Well, I've caught the mind-reading delusion. I begin to believe that I understand Pogosa's reasoning. She is now beginning to be eaten by remorse. She came into this expedition for the food and drink. She now repents and is about to confess that she knows nothing about the mine. She and Eugene have conspired against us and are 'doing' us – good."

"Nitsky! You're away off your base. The fact is, Pogosa is a Sioux. She cares nothing for the Shoshoni, and she wants to realize on this mine. She wants to go back to her people before she dies. She means business – don't you think she don't; and if her running-gear don't unmesh to-night or to-morrow she's going to make good – that's my hunch."

"I hope you're right, but I can't believe it."

"You don't need to. You keep her thinking you're the Sun-god – that's your job."

It rained all that day, and when night settled down it grew unreasonably warm for that altitude, and down on the marshes the horses stood, patiently enduring the gnats and mosquitoes. They plagued Pogosa so cruelly that Wetherell took his own web of bobinet and made a protecting cage for her head and hands. Never before had she been shielded from the pests of outdoor life. She laughed as she heard the baffled buzzing outside her net, and, pointing her finger, addressed them mockingly. Wetherell took the same joy in this that a child takes in the action of a kitten dressed as a doll. To Eugene he said:

"You tell her Injun plenty fool. He don't know enough to get gold and buy mosquito netting. If she is wise and shows me the mine she will never be bitten again. No flies. No mosquitoes. Plenty beef. Plenty butter and hot biscuits. Plenty sugar and coffee. White man's own horse carry her back to her people."

It took some time to make the old woman understand this, and then she replied briefly, but with vigor, and Eugene translated it thus: "White man all same big chief. Go find mine, sure, for you. No want other white man to have gold. All yours."

The morning broke tardily. The rain had ceased, but the gray mist still hid the peaks, and now and then the pines shook down a shower of drops upon the tent cloth as if impatient of the persistent gathering of moisture. Otherwise the forest was as still as if it were cut from bronze.

Kelley arose and, going outside, began kicking the embers together. "Wake up, Andy. It's a gray outlook we have," he announced, after a careful survey. "The worst sign is this warmth and stillness. We're in the heart of the storm, and the mosquitoes are hellish."

As Wetherell was creeping from the tent door one of the pines quivered and sent down a handful of drops, squarely soaking the back of his neck, and a huge mosquito stuck savagely to the end of his nose. He was not in the best of humor as he straightened up.

"I can stand cold and snow, or wet and cold, but this hot, sticky, dark weather irritates me. Let's climb high and see if we can't reach the frost-line."

"We'll be frosty enough when this storm passes," Kelley said, comfortingly. Then in a note of astonishment and surprise, "Well, look at that!"

Wetherell looked where he pointed, and beheld Pogosa squatting before a meager fire at her tent door, her head carefully draped in her bobinet. He forgot his own lumps and bumps, and laughed. "So doth the white man's civilization creep upon and subdue the Amerind, destroying his robust contempt for the elements and making of him a Sybarite."

Eugene appeared, grinning ruefully. "Heap dam' moskeets. Drink my blood all night."

"I reckon you got gran'ma's share," said Kelley.

Pogosa met Wetherell's glance with an exultant smile and pointed at the net as if to say: "See, I am safe. The angry brutes cannot touch me."

"The old girl is on her taps this morning. She deserves a reward. Wait a jiffy. There" – and Kelley uncorked a flask and poured a wee drop of an amber-colored liquid into the cup of coffee which Wetherell was about to take to her – "say nothing and see what happens."

She ate a rousing breakfast and was especially pleased with the coffee. Kelley repeated the dose, and she, much invigorated, ordered Eugene to bring her pony to her. This tickled Kelley mightily.

"You see how it is! She's already the millionairess. Who ever heard of an Injun getting up a horse for an old squaw? Look at Eugene!"

Eugene was indeed in open rebellion, and Wetherell, not caring to have trouble with him, went down and brought up the pony himself. He also gave the old woman his slicker and insisted on her wearing it, whereat Eugene wondered again.