Tell
her the cough gits lower down all the time. 'Member when she tended that
felon o' yourn, Pierre?"
Pierre looked at a sear on his finger and nodded. "She cut it too young;
but she had the nerve! When do you start, captain? It's an eighty-mile
ride."
"At once," was the reply. "We can sleep to-night in the Jim-a-long-Jo"
(a hut which the Company had built between two distant posts), "and get
there at dawn day after to-morrow. The snow is light and we can travel
quick. I have a good horse, and you--"
"I have my black Tophet. He'll travel with your roan as on one snaffle-
bar. That roan--you know where he come from?"
"From the Dolright stud, over the Border."
"That's wrong. He come from Greystop's paddock, where my Tophet was
foaled; they are brothers. Yours was stole and sold to the Gover'ment;
mine was bought by good hard money. The law the keeper of stolen goods,
eh? But these two will go cinch to cinch all the way, like two brothers
--like you and me."
He could not help the touch of irony in his last words: he saw the
amusing side of things, and all humour in him had a strain of the
sardonic.
"Brothers-in-law for a day or two," answered Halby drily.
Within two hours they were ready to start. Pierre had charged Duc the
incompetent upon matters for the old man's comfort, and had himself, with
a curious sort of kindness, steeped the boneset and camomile in whisky,
and set a cup of it near his chair.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50