down
meself to the stores and git ye medicines an' a doctor, an' what not.
Cheer up, now--"

Larry's enthusiastic efforts to console his new friend were interrupted
by the sick man, who awoke at the moment, and whispered the word "food."

His sister rose, and taking up a small tin pan that simmered on the fire
in front of the tent, poured some of its contents into a dish.

"What is it ye give him?" inquired Larry, taking the dish from the
girl's hands and putting it to his lips. He instantly spat out the
mouthful, for it was soup made of rancid pork, without vegetables of any
kind.

"'Tis all I've got left," said the girl. "Even if I was able to go down
for more, he wouldn't let me; but I couldn't, for I've tried more than
once, and near died on the road. Besides, I haven't a grain o' goold in
the tent."

"O morther! Tare an' ages!" cried Larry, staring first at the girl and
then at her brother, while he slapped his thighs and twisted his fingers
together as if he wished to wrench them out of joint.

"Howld on, faix I'll do it. Don't give it him, plaze; howld on, _do_!"

Larry O'Neil turned round as he spoke, seized his cudgel, sprang right
over the bushes in front of the tent, and in two minutes more was seen
far down the ravine, spurning the ground beneath him as if life and
death depended on the race.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

KINDNESS TO STRANGERS IN DISTRESS--REMARKS IN REFERENCE TO EARLY
RISING--DIGGINGS WAX UNPRODUCTIVE--NED TAKES A RAMBLE, AND HAS A SMALL
ADVENTURE--PLANS FORMED AND PARTLY DEVELOPED--REMARKABLE HUMAN CREATURES
DISCOVERED, AND STILL MORE REMARKABLE CONVERSE HELD WITH THEM.

"I'll throuble ye for two pounds of flour," cried Larry O'Neil, dashing
into one of the stores, which was thronged with purchasers, whom he
thrust aside rather unceremoniously.

"You'll have to take your turn, stranger, I calculate," answered the
store-keeper, somewhat sharply.

"Ah thin, avic, plaze do attind to me at wance; for sure I've run four
miles to git stuff for a dyin' family--won't ye now?"

The earnest manner in which Larry made this appeal was received with a
laugh by the bystanders, and a recommendation to the store-keeper to
give him what he wanted.

"What's the price?" inquired Larry, as the man measured it out.

"Two dollars a pound," answered the man.

"Musha! I've seed it chaiper."

"I guess so have I; but provisions are gittin' up, for nothin' has come
from Sacramento for a fortnig