The Old Man--the thing could not be true! To every man of them
his presence, conjured by the impending tragedy, was almost a
palpable thing. His stocky figure seemed almost to stand in their
midst; he looked at them with his whimsical eyes, which had the
radiating crows-feet of age, humor and habitual squinting against
sun and wind; the bald spot on his head, the wrinkling
shirt-collar that seldom knew a tie, the carpet slippers which
were his favorite footgear because they were kind to his bunions,
his husky voice, good-naturedly complaining, were poignantly real
to them at that moment. Then Irish mentally pictured him lying
maimed, dying, perhaps, in a far-off hospital among strangers,
and swore.

"If he's got to die, it oughta be here, where folks know him
and--where he knows--" Irish was not accustomed to giving voice
to his deeper feelings, and he blundered awkwardly over it.

"I never did go much on them darned hospitals, anyway," Weary
observed gloomily. "He oughta be home, where folks can look after
him. Mam-ma! It sure is a fright."

"I betche Chip and the Little Doctor won't get there in time,"
Happy Jack predicted, with his usual pessimism. "The Old Man's
gittin' old--"

"He ain't but fifty-two; yuh call that old, consarn yuh? He's
younger right now than you'll be when you're forty."

"Countess is going along, too, so she can ride herd on the Kid,"