He was still talking, and the wind was yet blowing, when my confused attention was aroused by a remark addressed to the recumbent figures.
"Now, then, which on ye'll see the stranger up the creek to Altascar's, tomorrow ?" There was a general movement of opposition in the group, but no decided answer.
"Kin you go, Kerg ?" "Who's to look up stock in Strarberry perar-ie ?" This seemed to imply a negative, and the old man turned to another hopeful, who was pulling the fur from a mangy bearskin on which he was lying, with an expression as though it were somebody's hair.
"Well, Tom, wot's to hinder you from goin' ?" "Mam's goin' to Brown's store at sunup, and I s'pose I've got to pack her and the baby agin." I think the expression of scorn this unfortunate youth exhibited for the filial duty into which he had been evidently beguiled was one of the finest things I had ever seen.
"Wise ?" Wise deigned no verbal reply, but figuratively thrust a worn and patched boot into the discourse.

The old man flushed quickly.
"I told ye to get Brown to give you a pair the last time you war down the river." "Said he wouldn't without'en order.

Said it was like pulling gum teeth to get the money from you even then." There was a grim smile at this local hit at the old man's parsimony, and Wise, who was clearly the privileged wit of the family, sank back in honorable retirement.
"Well, Joe, ef your boots are new, and you aren't pestered with wimmin and children, p'r'aps you'll go," said Tryan, with a nervous twitching, intended for a smile, about a mouth not remarkably mirthful.
Tom lifted a pair of bushy eyebrows, and said shortly: "Got no saddle." "Wot's gone of your saddle ?" "Kerg, there"-- indicating his brother with a look such as Cain might have worn at the sacrifice.
"You lie!" returned Kerg, cheerfully.
Tryan sprang to his feet, seizing the chair, flourishing it around his head and gazing furiously in the hard young faces which fearlessly met his own.

But it was only for a moment; his arm soon dropped by his side, and a look of hopeless fatality crossed his face.

He allowed me to take the chair from his hand, and I was trying to pacify him by the assurance that I required no guide when the irrepressible Wise again lifted his voice: "Theer's George comin'! why don't ye ask him?
He'll go and introduce you to Don Fernandy's darter, too, ef you ain't pertickler." The laugh which followed this joke, which evidently had some domestic allusion (the general tendency of rural pleasantry), was followed by a light step on the platform, and the young man entered.