"Well, no, I'm not sure about that. I don't know that I've any special grudge against this lot."
"Seems to me it's a good deal like an Indian to kill one man for what another man did. I'm only a boy, and I've been among the Lipans three years, but I've made up my mind to stay white."
Steve spoke with a good deal of energy, and his robust form seemed to stand up straighter.
"You're right, Steve; don't you do a thing that isn't fit for your color. I won't say anything more about myself just now."
If anybody had been listening to those two that morning, or indeed at any other time, he might have noticed something curious about the way Steve Harrison talked. It was not to be wondered at that a veteran like Murray should be slow of speech, and it suited well with his white hair and his wrinkles.
There was a good reason for it. Except when talking with Murray, Steve had not heard a word of English for three years.
Yes, there had been one other exception. When, ever he had found himself all alone he had talked to himself, asking and answering questions, and listening to his own pronunciation of the words.
"I shall get among white men some day," he thought, "and it would be a dreadful thing to be white myself and not talk white. Anyhow, I've learned Mexican Spanish since I've been out here, and I'll be glad enough to forget all I know of Indian talk."
He did not know it, but some things he said sounded ten years older and wiser just for his manner of saying them. Besides, he had had to think a great deal, and to keep most of his thoughts to himself. Not a great many boys do that.
"Come on, Steve. That ledge isn't badly broken. Horses can follow it, and it heads away right into the pine-forest. We must try it."
"We can get almost down into the valley without being seen."
"Yes, and we can find out if any good gap opens out of the valley to the northward."
Captain Skinner and his miners were quickly at the head of that ravine again, but the gold ledge stopped them all as if it had been a high fence.
"Cap," said the man called Bill, "of course them two fellers lit onto this mine. They couldn't ha' helped it. But they haven't done a stroke of work on it. Reckon we kin set up marks of our own."