Charlie had no idea what a telegram was. He shook his head.
“I stay here. I fight um,” he said.
“You see, this land doesn’t belong to me,” Tom went on, half absently going over the argument he had mentally rehearsed so often. “I haven’t any real rights here, I suppose. But no more has Harrison. This place belongs to Uncle Phil, or maybe one of the boys. Here they are, Charlie.”
And Tom took from his pocket the photograph of the group of himself and his cousins which he had shown to McLeod.
Charlie looked at it with great interest and grinned as he recognized the central figure.
“That-um you, Tom,” he said, pointing. Then, indicating one of the others, “Who that man?”
“That’s my cousin Dave.”
“I know him,” Charlie announced, gazing hard.
“No, I guess not,” Tom replied.
“Sure!” Charlie insisted. “I see him this spring. He work in mine camp, ’way up Wawista, what you call Blackfish River.”