Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/39

 sharpened, even a hickory bow and arrow had been strapped on the wagon's back axle. His calico waist had also bulged out on the one side with a long-used and well-tried sling-shot, on the other with a goodly stock of leaden pellets, made by means of a rusty old bullet-mould, hired from a comrade spirit for the occasion. ]]}}

But neither buffalo nor Indian had crossed Lonely's path. Not a wild animal had molested them; not even a road-agent had interrupted their journey, nor a highwayman prowled about their camp!

To Lonely it had seemed very slow traveling. For on his broken-springed and sadly overloaded wagon the adventurous Timothy O'Malley, lately returned from the gold-fields of the Klondike, carried not only all his goods and chattels, but also his own inebriate self and his pensive-browed, hollow-cheeked wife, to say nothing of a lusty-throated infant