Within the house the furnishings accorded with their surroundings. Two folding bunks, similar in conception to the upper berths of a Pullman car, were built end to end against the wall; when they were raised to give room, four supports dangled beneath like paralyzed arms. A home-made table, suggesting those scattered about country picnic grounds, a few cheap chairs, a row of chests and cupboards variously remodelled from a common foundation of dry-goods boxes, and a stove, ingeniously evolved out of the cylinder and head of a portable engine, comprised the furniture.
The morning sunlight which dimmed the candles of Mick Kennedy's saloon drifted through the single high-set window of the Big B Ranch-house, revealing there a very different scene. From beneath the quilts in one of the folding bunks appeared the faces of a woman and a little boy. At the opening of the dog-kennel the head of a mottled yellow-and-white mongrel dog projected into the room, the sensitive muzzle pointing directly at the occupied bunk. The eyes of woman, child, and beast were open and moved restlessly about.
"Mamma," and the small boy wriggled beneath the clothes, "Mamma, I'm hungry."
The white face of the woman turned away, more pallid than before. An unfamiliar observer would have been at a loss to guess the age of the owner. In that haggard, non-committal countenance there was nothing to indicate whether she was twenty-five or forty.
The boy closed his eyes dutifully, and for perhaps five minutes there was silence; then the blue orbs opened wider than before.
"Mamma, I can't go to sleep. I'm hungry!"
"Never mind, Benjamin. The horses, the rabbits, the birds,--all get hungry sometimes." A hacking cough interrupted her words. "Snuggle close up to me, little son, and keep warm."
"But, mamma, I want something to eat. Won't you get it for me?"
He waited a moment. "Won't you let me help myself, then, mamma?"
"Mamma," the child repeated, gently shaking his mother's shoulder, "won't you let me help myself?"
"There's nothing for you to eat, sonny, nothing at all."
The blue child-eyes widened; the serious little face puckered.
"Why ain't there anything to eat, mamma?"
The reasoning was conclusive, and the child accepted it without further parley; but soon another interrogation took form in his active brain.