He presses her to his heart, hastily embraces her, and tearing himself away, stoops and kisses the boy as he passes to the door. Drawing his tattered shirt closer about his shoulders, and turning his face as if to conceal his emotion, he lays his hand upon the latch to suddenly dart forth.
Two dark figures pass the window, and in a moment more the latch-string is clutched by a rough, unsteady hand from without.
"Here, here!" cries the girl, as she springs back to the dingy curtain that divides off a portion of the cabin into a bed-room. "Here! in here! Quick! quick!" as she draws the curtain aside, and lets it fall over the retreating fugitive. Forty-nine and Gar Dosson enter. The former is drunk, and therefore dignified and silent. His companion is drunk, and therefore garrulous and familiar. Wine floats a man's real nature nearly to the surface.
Forty-nine lifts his hat, bows politely and respectfully to the children, brushes his hat with his elbow as he meanders across the floor to the peg in the wall, but cannot quite trust himself to speak.
"Hullo, Carats!" cries Gar Dosson, as he chucks her under the chin. "Knowed I was coming, didn't you? Got yourself fixed up. Pretty, ain't she?" and he winks a blood-shot eye toward Stumps. "And when is it going to be my Carats? Pretty soon, now, eh?" and he walks, or rather totters, aside.
"Umph! I have got 'em again, Carrie. Fly around and get us something to eat. Fly around, Carrie, fly around! Oh, I've got the shakes again!" groans Forty-nine.
"Poor old boy!" and she brushes the snow from his beard and his tattered coat. "Why, Forty-nine, you're shaking like a leaf."
"He's drunk—that's what's the matter with him." Gar Dosson growls this out between his teeth as he sets his gun in the corner.
"He's not drunk! Its the ager!" retorts Stumps fiercely.
Gar Dosson, glaring at the boy, steadies himself on his right leg, and diving deep in his left hand pocket, draws forth a large bill or poster. With both hands he manages to spread this out, and swaggering up to the wall near the window he hangs it on two pegs that are there to receive coats or hats.