saved the almost helpless men from freezing to death, by taking them into his house and seating them by the stove; but, through later absorption of a few more drinks at the bar, they were left, in the course of a few hours, in as poor condition for locomotion as before entering the tavern. “See here, McKenna,” said the County Delegate, “I don’t see whatever I’m to do wid these fellows! Sure an’ they insist on goin’ home this very night to Shenandoah, beyant, at all hazards, an’ I know, as well as I know I’m now spakin’, they’ll be stone dead, if they ever live to get off the mountain, wid the cold an’ the whisky! You’ll hev to go in their company, an’ see they don’t fraze up enthirely!” “Faix an’ I am the lad that kin do that same!” answered the Secretary! “But how am I to act wid the obstinate bastes if they jist lie down in the snow an’ refuse to move? That might bother me! The divil can’t match a drunken man fur obstinacy!” “Oh, fur that matther,” said King Jack, with a cruel blaze in his eye, “if they do that, ye’ll hev to build a fire under ’em as we do below a balky mule, an’ here’s plenty of matches for your use!” Kehoe handed the operative a box of lucifers and held the light until the three men were well off the platform in front of his house, when he wished them plenty of “good luck” and shut the door, leaving them in darkness. Kehoe having found out that the men carried a little money with them, and fearing they might be robbed, even if lucky enough to escape death by freezing, should they linger by the roadside, was glad to have McKenna travel in their company. The path was dimly marked and the obscurity almost impenetrable, as the young man, with a drunken miner clinging to either arm, attempted to seek the way over the hills to Shenandoah. First McAndrew stumbled and fell, and McKenna was forced to relax his hold of Maguire and help his superior officer to his feet. While this was being accomplished, Maguire, left unpropped, and unable or unwilling to stand alone, suddenly slipped and went down headlong through the darkness into a deep bank of snow, in which he floundered and sputtered like a struggling novice at a swimming-school. McKenna, at first, tried hard to restrain his temper, and finally succeeded in starting both of his protégés once more _en route_ for home. But his patience gave way after three or four repetitions of the same act, varied only by McAndrew rolling down a steep declivity, and coming very near going off a ledge of rock to the bottom, a distance of thirty feet. “I’ll be shivered!” exclaimed McAndrew, when once more in the road, “if I walk another step! What’ser use gettin’ all tired out, when its so warrum and nice slapin’ here? I’m jist goin’ to bed!” So saying, the Bodymaster threw himself flat in the snowbank, stretched out his limbs, and prepared to stay where he was during the remainder of the night. “Tha’so!” repeated Maguire. “Move ’long, Frank, an’ don’t take up all the bed!”