t was evident
he had for some time been suffering from starvation. He wore no
clothing, carried no arms of any kind, and was so utterly abject, and so
evidently incapable of doing harm to any one, that none of the party
thought it worth while to rise, or lay hands on a weapon. When he
appeared, Joe Graddy merely pointed to him with the stem of his pipe and
said--

"There's a beauty, ain't it? another of the cooriosities of Californy!"

"Starvin'," observed Rance.

"Poor wretch!" exclaimed Frank, as the man advanced slowly with timid
steps, while his large sunken eyes absolutely glared at the broken meat
which lay scattered about.

"Give him von morsel," suggested Meyer.

"Give him a bullet in his dirty carcase," growled Bradling.

The Indian stopped when within ten paces of the fire and grinned
horribly.

"Here, stop up your ghastly mouth wi' that," cried Jeffson, tossing a
lump of salt-pork towards him.

He caught it with the dexterity of a monkey, and, squatting down on the
trunk of a fallen tree, devoured it with the ravenous ferocity of a
famishing hyena. The piece of pork would have been a sufficient meal
for any ordinary man, but it quickly vanished down the throat of the
savage, who licked his fingers, and, with eyes which required no tongue
to interpret their meaning, asked for more!

"Look out!" cried Joe Graddy, tossing him a sea biscuit as one throws a
quoit.

The Indian caught it deftly; crash went his powerful teeth into the hard
mass, and in an incredibly short time it was--with the pork!

The whole party were so highly amused by this, that they "went in," as
Jeffson said, "for an evening's entertainment." One tossed the poor man
a cut of ham, another a slice of pork, a third a mass of bread, and so
they continued to ply him with victuals, determined to test his powers
to the uttermost.

"Try another bit of pork," said Douglas, laughing, as he threw him a cut
as large as the first; "you've finished all the cooked meat now."

The Indian caught it eagerly, and began to devour it as though he had
eaten nothing.

"He's tightening up like a drum," observed Jeffson, handing him a greasy
wedge off a raw flitch of bacon.

"Him vill boost," said Meyer, staring at the Indian and smoking slowly,
owing to the strength of his amazement.

"Jack the Giant Killer was a joke to him," muttered Graddy.

"A bottomless pit," observed Rance, referring to his stomach.

The Indian, however, proved that