Sinnet's eyes half closed as he watched the mountaineer, and the long, scraggy hands and whipcord neck seemed to interest him greatly. He looked at his own slim, brown hands with a half smile, and it was almost as cruel as the laugh of the other. Yet it had, too, a knowledge and an understanding which gave it humanity.
"You're sure he did it?" Sinnet asked, presently, after drinking a very small portion of liquor, and tossing some water from the pannikin after it. "You're sure Greevy killed your boy, Buck?"
"My name's Buckmaster, ain't it--Jim Buckmaster? Don't I know my own name? It's as sure as that. My boy said it was Greevy when he was dying. He told Bill Ricketts so, and Bill 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?"