“Not everybody,” Ma Snow’s voice had an ominous quaver, “or you’d a learned long ago that you can’t knock that young man in my hearin’. I haven’t forgot if you have, that the only real money that’s been in the camp all Summer has come up from the river.”
“We wasn’t sayin’ anything against him personal,” the brash Samuel assured her hastily; but Bruce’s champion refused to be mollified.
“What if he did shut down? What of it?” She glared defiance until her pale eyes watered with the strain. “I don’t notice anybody here that’s ever had gumption enough even to start up. What do you do?” She answered for them—“Jest scratch a hole in the ground, then set and wait for Capital to come and hand you out a million. I dast you to answer!”
It was plain from the silence that no one cared to remove the chip on Ma Snow’s shoulder.
“I hear he aims to stay down there all winter alone and trap.” Judge Petty made the observation for the sake of conversation merely, as the fact was as well known as that there were four feet of snow outside or that the camp was “busted.”
“And it’s to his credit,” Ma Snow snapped back. “When he’s doin’ that he ain’t runnin’ up board bills he cain’t pay.”
“It’s as good a place as any,” admitted the Judge, “providin’ he don’t go nutty.” He raised his voice and added with a significant look at Uncle Bill: “Bachin’ alone makes some fellers act like a bull-elk that’s been whipped out of the herd.”
“It takes about four months before you begin to think that somebudy’s layin’ out in the brush watchin’ you—waitin’ to rob you even if you haven’t got anything to steal but a slab of swine-buzzum and a sack of flour. The next stage,” went on the citizen behind the stove speaking with the voice of authority, “is when you pack your rifle along every time you go for a bucket of water, and light you palouser in the middle of the night to go around the cabin lookin’ for tracks. Yes, sir,” emphatically, “and the more brains you got the quicker you go off.”
“You seemed about the same when you got back as when you left that time you wintered alone on the left fork of Swiftwater,” Ma Snow commented.
“Like as not you remember that spell I spent t’other side of Sheep-eater Ridge when I druv that fifty foot tunnel single-handed into the Silver King?”