id a piece, catching a nap now and then as best we could, for
we was monstrous tired. By daylight we'd made fourteen miles, and was
obliged to stop to let the cattle graze. We boiled our coffee, fried
some meat, and by that time the little boy waked. He'd slept like a top
all night and hadn't no supper either; so when I went to the wagon where
he was to fetch him out, he just put them baby arms of his'n around my
neck, and says, 'Where's mamma?'

"I tell you, boys, that nigh played me out. He had no idee, 'cause he
was too young to realize what had happened; we know'd his pa was killed,
but where his ma was, God only know'd!"

Here the old man stopped short in his narrative, made two or three
efforts as if to swallow something that would not go down, while his
eyes had a far-away look. Presently he picked up a fresh coal from the
fire, placed it on his pipe, which had gone out, then puffing vigorously
for a few seconds, until his head was again enveloped in smoke, he
continued:--

"After I'd washed the little fellow's face and hands, I gave him a
tin cup of coffee and some meat. You'd ought to seen him eat; he
was hungrier than a coyote. Then while the others was a watering and
picketing the mules, I sot down on the grass and took the kid into
my lap to have a good look at him; for until now none of us had had a
chance.

"He was the purtiest child I'd ever seen; great black eyes, and
eyelashes that laid right on to his cheeks; his hair, too, was black,
and as curly as a young big-horn. I asked him what his name was, and he
says, 'Paul.' 'Hain't you got no other name?' says I to him again, and
he answered, 'Yes, sir,' for he was awful polite; I noticed that. 'Paul
Dale,' says he prompt-like, and them big eyes of his'n looked up into
mine, as he says 'What be yourn?' I told him he must call me 'Uncle
John,' and then he says again, as he put his arms around my neck, his
little lips all a quivering, and looking so sorrowful, 'Uncle John,
where's mamma; why don't she come?'

"Boys, I don't really know what I did say. A kind o' mist came before
my eyes, and for a minute or two I didn't know nothing. I come to in a
little while, and seeing Thorpe bringing up the mules from the river,
where he'd been watering them, I says to Paul, to get his mind on to
something else besides his mother, 'Don't you want to ride one of them
mules when we pull out again?' The little fellow jumped off my lap,
clapped his hands, forgetting his