now required the external administration of opodeldoc to his limbs, and
the internal administration of whiskey. Having thus spoken, Mr.
Fairley, with great promptitude and infantine simplicity, at once bared
two legs of entirely different colors and mutely waited for his
daughter to rub them. If Flip did this all unconsciously, and with the
mechanical dexterity of previous habit, it was because she did not
quite understand the savage eyes and impatient gestures of Lance in his
encompassing wig and blanket, and because it helped her to voice her
thought.
"Ye'll never be able to take yer watch at the diamond pit to-night,
Dad," she said; "and I've been reck'nin' you might set the squaw there
instead. I can show her what to do."
But to Flip's momentary discomfiture, her father promptly objected.
"Mebbe I've got suthin' else for her to do. Mebbe I may have my
secrets, too--eh?" he said, with dark significance, at the same time
administering a significant nudge to Lance, which kept up the young
man's exasperation. "No, she'll rest yer a bit just now. I'll set her
to watchin' suthin' else, like as not, when I want her." Flip fell into
one of her suggestive silences. Lance watched her earnestly, mollified
by a single furtive glance from her significant eyes; the rain dashed
against the windows, and occasionally spattered and hissed in the
hearth of the broad chimney, and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuaged
by the internal administration of whiskey, grew more loquacious. The
genius of incongruity and inconsistency which generally ruled his
conduct came out with freshened vigor under the gentle stimulation of
spirit. "On an evening like this," he began, comfortably settling
himself on the floor beside the chimney, "ye might rig yerself out in
them new duds and fancy fixin's that that Sacramento shrimp sent ye,
and let your own flesh and blood see ye. If that's too much to do for
your old dad, ye might do it to please that digger squaw as a Christian
act." Whether in the hidden depths of the old man's consciousness there
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