"I reckon you know what took me there—sir."
The final word came in afterthought. No mountaineer says "sir," by habit.
A part of that stubborn independence which is at once the virtue and the fault of the race balks at even such small measure of implied deference, but Boone had noticed that "down below," where courtesy flowers into graciousness, the form of address was general.
McCalloway responded slowly.
"Yes, I can guess your errand there. How is he?"
The boy's eyes gazed off across the slopes through contracted lids, and his voice came in deliberate but repressed tenseness.
"I hunted up Colonel Wallifarro's office and he went over there with me.... I reckon, except for that, they wouldn't have let me see him."
He paused, and the man thoughtfully observed, "No, I fancy not."
"You go into that jail-house through a stone door, and there's a rough-lookin' feller settin'—I mean sitting—there in front of another door made of iron gratin's as thick as crowbars.... The place don't smell good."
"Isn't it well kept?" inquired McCalloway in some surprise, and the boy hastily explained.