in' if I made him bring you it might kind o' make up, but it
didn't."

"Made a big difference to me," the Colonel said, still not able to see
the drift, but patiently brushing now and then at the dazzling mist and
waiting for enlightenment.

"It's always the same," the other went on. "Whenever I've come up
against something I'd hoped was goin' to make up, it's turned out to be
a thing I'd have to do anyway, and there was no make up about it. For
all that, I shouldn't mind stayin' on awhile since you want me to----"

The Colonel interrupted him, "That's right!"

"Only if I do, you've got to know--what I'd never have guessed myself,
but for the Trail. After I've told you, if you can bear to see me
round----" He hesitated and suddenly stood up, his eyes still wet, but
his head so high an onlooker who did not understand English would have
called the governing impulse pride, defiance even. "It seems I'm the
kind of man, Colonel--the kind of man who could leave his pardner to
die like a dog in the snow."

"If any other fella said so, I'd knock him down."

"That night before we got to Snow Camp, when you wouldn't--couldn't go
any farther, I meant to go and leave you--take the sled, and take--I
guess I meant to take everything and leave you to starve."

They looked into each other's faces, and years seemed to go by. The
Colonel was the first to drop his eyes; but the other, pitilessly, like
a judge arraigning a felon, his steady scrutiny never flinching: "Do
you want that kind of a man round, Colonel?"

The Kentuckian turned quickly as if to avoid the stab of the other's
eye, and sat hunched together, elbows on knees, head in hands.

"I knew you didn't." The Boy answered his own question. He limped over
to his side of the tent, picked up some clothes, his blanket and few
belongings, and made a pack. Not a word, not a sound, but some birds
twittering outside in the sun and a locust making that frying sound in
the fire-weed. The pack was slung on the Boy's back, and he was
throwing the diamond hitch to fasten it when the Colonel at last looked
round.

"Lord, what you doin'?"

"Guess I'm goin' on."

"Where?"

"I'll write you when I know; maybe I'll even send you what I owe you,
but I don't feel like boastin' at the moment. Nig!"

"You can't walk."

"Did you never happen to notice that one-legged fella pluggin' about
Dawson?"

He had gone down on his hands and knees to see if Nig was asleep under
the camp-bed.