"Gimme some whiskey," he said presently "and dry up. You oughter treat
anyway. Them fellows oughter treated last night. By hookey, I'd made
'em--only I fell sick."

York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the table beside him, and,
going to the door, turned his back upon his guest, and looked out on the
night. Although it was clear moonlight, the familiar prospect never to
him seemed so dreary. The dead waste of the broad Wingdam highway never
seemed so monotonous, so like the days that he had passed, and were to
come to him, so like the old man in its suggestion of going sometime,
and never getting there. He turned, and going up to Plunkett put his
hand upon his shoulder, and said,--

"I want you to answer one question fairly and squarely."

The liquor seemed to have warmed the torpid blood in the old man's
veins, and softened his acerbity; for the face he turned up to York was
mellowed in its rugged outline, and more thoughtful in expression, as he
said,--

"Go on, my boy."

"Have you a wife and--daughter?"

"Before God I have!"

The two men were silent for a moment, both gazing at the fire. Then
Plunkett began rubbing his knees slowly.

"The wife, if it comes to that, ain't much," he began cautiously, "being