Paisley noted the smile that drifted across his friend’s face, and he nodded his head up and down slowly.
“Guess I’ll be hittin’ the back trail,” he said rising, “and you best go to bed, Boy. I’ll come over to-morrow as we arranged and help you set your traps in the runs. It’s goin’ to freeze right soon, and trappin’ is on from now. Declute got a couple of deer this afternoon, so we’ll just take a whack at ’em ourselves toward night to-morrow.”
“You’d better stay and sleep with me, Bill,” said Boy. “Somehow I’d like to have you, and we could make an early start in the mornin’.”
“Oh, I’ll hoof it along back, I guess,” laughed Paisley.
He was wondering whether he ought to tell Boy what he had learned concerning Watson and Simpson. He glanced at Boy and his lips closed tight.
“He’d kill ’em both,” he thought, “—I’ll watch them fellers myself.”
With his hands on the latch of the door he glanced back. Boy was seated before the dead fire, his chin on his hand and the bundle of deeds pressed against his cheek. Paisley leaned his rifle against the wall and unstrapped his powder-horn. Then he came back and put his hands on Boy’s shoulders.
“I’d best stay, I guess,” he grinned, “and show you how a real Bushwhacker should sleep. It strikes me, Boy, that you’re lookin’ some lonesome and need company. Glad Ander Declute’s goin’ to have a loggin’-bee. It’ll stir us all up.”
He sat down on a stool and started to unlace his moccasins, whistling an old tune beneath his breath. Boy arose and, walking to the window, gazed out across his kingdom. An owl was hooting from a distant thicket. Down in the deep shadow a fox called, and from the sheep-corral came the soft bleating of a late lamb. The chickens in the coop stirred and voiced their uneasiness. Outside on a well-worn spot a dog stretched himself, arose and sniffed the breeze, then assumed his former position.
Boy turned to the long cupboard near the hearth.