bad, an' my comrades wos gittin' tired o' me; so says I
to them one night, says I, 'I give out, lads; I'll make
tracks for the settlement to-morrow.' They tried to
laugh me out of it at first, but it was no go, so I packed
up, bid them good-day, an' sot off alone on a trip o' five
hundred miles. The very first mile o' the way back I
began to mend, and before two days I wos all right
again."
Joe was interrupted at this point by the sudden
appearance of a solitary horseman on the brow of an