of men who never get on, somehow, or do any-
thing but work hard for a dollar or two a day.

On those bitter, starlit nights, as we sat
around the old stove that fed us and warmed
us and kept us cheerful, we could hear the
coyotes howling down by the corrals, and their
hungry, wintry cry used to remind the boys
of wonderful animal stories; about gray
wolves and bears in the Rockies, wildcats and
panthers in the Virginia mountains. Some-
times Fuchs could be persuaded to talk about
the outlaws and desperate characters he had
known. I remember one funny story about
himself that made grandmother, who was
working her bread on the bread-board, laugh
until she wiped her eyes with her bare arm,
her hands being floury. It was like this: --

When Otto left Austria to come to America,
he was asked by one of his relatives to look
after a woman who was crossing on the same
boat, to join her husband in Chicago. The
woman started off with two children, but it
was clear that her family might grow larger
on the journey. Fuchs said he "got on fine
with the kids," and liked the mother, though
she played a sorry trick on him. In mid-ocean
she proceeded to have not one baby, but three!

[[77]]

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