"Oh!"
"Yes," the old man continued after a pause, "she was my wife, an' we'd been married scarce one year when she left me."
"Poor man!" Nance soothed. "How hard it must have been for you. You have no home, then, and no one to love you?"
"Well, I can't altogether say that, Miss. My home is wherever night overtakes me, but it's seldom in sich a comfortable place as this. I've friends a plenty, but no one to care fer me jist like Nell used to do. I can't expect it. People have about as much as they can do to look after themselves without botherin' about an old man who has one foot in the grave."
"But you must get very sad and lonely at times," Nance remarked.
"I do, Miss; I certainly do."
"How do you keep so cheerful, then?"
"How d'ye know that I keep cheerful?" and Tom looked his surprise.
"Oh, that man who came with you told us that you were the life of the camp at Rapid City last winter."
"Did Dick really say that, Miss? An' did he tell ye anything about himself?"