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-o-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 towards 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 anyone who had lived a life of chance and
danger and accident, and his face grew a shade paler; but he did not
move, and Buckmaster's hand tightened convulsively.

"You liked him, an' he liked you; he first learnt poker off you, Sinnet.
He thought you was a tough, but he didn't mind that no more than I did.
It ain't for us to say what we're goin' to be, not always. Things in
life git stronger than we are. You was a tough, but who's goin' to judge
you! I ain't; for Clint took to you, Sinnet, an' he never went wrong
in his thinkin'. God! he was wife an' child to me--an' he's
dead--dead--dead."

The man's grief was a painful thing to see.