“When I saw it I thought we had only to call out and they would hear us. I almost fancied I could see the little fellow’s face peeping at me from the very bush. Anyway, we must be on the right road and that does make it easier to go on.”
It did, indeed. Each felt a renewed patience for the toilsome search, though they were not immediately to come upon any further trace of the family they sought. That night they slept within a rocky cove and Dennis dreamed of hobgoblins and “phookas,” galore. His snores and outcries were so constant and disturbing that before daylight fairly came, all were awake and ready to move on.
The fact was that poor Dennis was growing feverish and somewhat light headed. His arm, in its heavy dressings, was painful and exceedingly heavy. His great boots cumbered him. He was homesick and full of forebodings; and, as the morning advanced, the twins felt seriously alarmed. When they pressed him to take some food, he peevishly declined it, protesting:
“No. I don’t want it. Take it away. Yes, I know, I know. Eatin’s fine for them that likes it. Not for me. Arrah musha! We’ll never find they we are seekin’. When I left Mr. Grady, ‘Dennis,’ says he, ‘you’re crazy,’ says he. ‘Ye’ll die in them mountains,’ says he, ‘an’ what’ll I do for a neighbor to wrastle with, when home we goes to old Ireland an’ yourself dead,’ says he. Troth, that same was the truth he was speakin’.”
Carlota was at her wits’ end. Dennis obstinately refused to touch any food or to go onward another step.
“Dennis, Dennis! How silly to talk about a dead man’s wrestling! and Dennis Fogarty! how mean to go and die—die—right in sight, almost, of our journey’s end! I thought you loved your ‘little lady,’ dear Dennis. Do you s’pose my Miguel would do anything so—so disappointing as to go and die, just because he wouldn’t eat, if I didn’t want him to? No. In truth! He’d live a hundred years, first, like old Guadalupo. He would so!”
A faint fire flashed in the tired eyes of the ex-trackman. He had quite decided to die. He felt, that under existing circumstances, life was too much to expect of any man. “Little lady?” Yes. Of course he loved her. She needn’t persist in taunting him with that wretched “Greaser.” Besides, anyhow, she had Carlos. They were all in all to each other, those two. They didn’t need him. His work was done. He had vindicated his manliness. He was very ill. Arrah musha! Very ill, indeed. Still, in the approved western style, he would “die with his boots on.” But he would, he wanted to, they needn’t—
“Look out! The lion—the lion!”
“Bang! Bang! Bang-bang-BANG!”