“Poor man! kan I do anydings for you?”
“Nothin’, pardner; only look in my side-pocket—there’s an old paper there. Can you find it?”
Morris put his hand into the pocket designated, and drew therefrom a folded paper, saying:
“Is it here? Is dis it?”
“That’s yours, pardner. If it ever amounts to anything, it proves the ownership to a claim out West in the gold fields. Keep it. I haven’t a relative on earth but a sister, maybe, if she isn’t dead. But if she is living, and you can find her, and the claim pans out, give her half, will you?”
“I vill—yust de same as if it vos mein own sister.”
“That’s bully, pard! Gimme your hand. So long. The sun has set, and I can see my mother up there, with a big gold nugget around her head. So long.”
These last words ended in a rattling gasp, and a sudden straightening of the limbs, and then a relaxation of the whole, strong body. “Cactus Bill” was dead “with his boots on.”
The dazed shoemaker stood up and looked wonderingly about him. So many things had happened in this one day that it is no wonder he was dazed by it all. Suddenly the weak voice of Loney called:
“Dora! Dora!”