ill told me afore he went East. Bill didn't want to
tell, but he said it was fair I should know, for my boy never did nobody
any harm--an' Greevy's livin' on! But I'll git him. Right's right."

"Wouldn't it be better for the law to hang him if you've got the proof,
Buck? A year or so in jail, an' a long time to think over what's going
round his neck on the scaffold--wouldn't that suit you, if you've got the
proof?"

A rigid, savage look came into Buckmaster's face.

"I ain't lettin' no judge and jury do my business. I'm for certain sure,
not for _p'r'aps_! An' I want to do it myself. Clint was only twenty. Like
boys we was together. I was eighteen when I married, an' he come when
_she_ went--jest a year--jest a year. An' ever since then we lived
together, him an' me, an' shot together, an' trapped together, an' went
gold-washin' together on the Cariboo, an' eat out of the same dish, an'
slept under the same blanket, and jawed together nights--ever since he was
five, when old Mother Lablache had got him into pants, an' he was fit to
take the trail."

The old man stopped a minute, his whipcord neck swelling, his lips
twitching. He brought a fist down on the table with a bang. "The biggest
little rip he was, as full of fun as a squirrel, an' never a smile--jest
his eyes dancin', an' more sense than a judge. He laid hold o' me, that
cub did--it was like his mother and himself together; an' the years
flowin' in an' peterin' out, an' him gettin' older, an' always jest the
same. Always on rock-bottom, always bright as a dollar, an' we livin' at
Black Nose Lake, layin' up cash agin' the time we was to go South, an' set
up a house along the railway, an' him to git married. I was for his
gittin' married same as me, when we had enough cash. I use to think of
that when he was ten, and when he was eighteen I spoke to him about it;
but he wouldn't listen--jest laughed at me. You remember how Clint used to
laugh, sort of low and teasin' like--you remember that laugh o' Clint's,
don't you?"

Sinnet's face was toward the valley and Juniper Bend, but he slowly turned
his head and looked at Buckmaster strangely out of his half-shut eyes. He
took the pipe from his mouth slowly.

"I can hear it now," he answered, slowly. "I hear it often, Buck."

The old man gripped his arm so suddenly that Sinnet was startled--in so
far as anything could startle any one who had lived a life of chance and
danger and accident--and his face grew a shad