“But looks don’t count in a skrimmage, and they ain’t worth talkin’ about. Thar’s whar Silverspur did count, and he was as good a man in a tight place, fur his inches, as I ever sot eyes onto. Ye mought bet yer pile that he’d never ran away from a fight, or go back on a friend. He was the right kind of a man, and old Jule knows it.”
The hunter slapped his rifle with his hand, to give emphasis to this assertion.
“Perhaps,” suggested one of the gentlemen, “this Wilder is the same man who was hung last week, for horse-stealing.”
“Ye’re wrong thar, stranger,” said the hunter, as his eyes flashed wickedly. “I won’t say but ye may hev sech a notion; but I hope ye won’t speak it out ag’in afore me. Silverspur warn’t the kind of a man to git picked up as a hoss-thief.”
“He is mistaken, my friend,” said the young man. “I knew Silverspur; but he is dead.”
“Dead! That chap! Dead!”
The hunter’s rifle fell on the floor, with a crash that startled all in the room, and his countenance was expressive of the deepest sorrow, as he stared blankly at his informant.
“Ef Silverspur is dead, what’s other folks livin’ for? Seems that a man like him hain’t no right to be took away. Thar’s few enough like him, and old Jule knows it. Did he jest die, stranger, or mought suthin’ hev happened to him?
“He was killed—shot in an encounter—here in St Louis.”
“Some sort of a skrimmage ye mean, I reckon. Is the man who did it a-livin’?”