"What does this mean?" I said.
But Apache Kid did not answer, and we rode on and on in silence while the evening darkened on the road to Camp Kettle.
But the look on Apache Kid's face forbade question.
CHAPTER XXIX
So-Long
ou will hardly be astonished to hear that the saloons in Kettle are open night and day. Go there when you please, you need no "knocking-up" of sleepy attendants. The hotel door is never closed.
It was long after midnight when we came into the place, over the very road and at the same hour and at much the same speed as Mr. Pinkerton must have ridden in pursuit of us, not a month prior to this ride of ours. This road from Baker City to Camp Kettle was the base of a triangle over which we had travelled, as it were, at the apex of which triangle was the Lost Cabin Mine; and when we passed the place on the hillside, where we had gone so short a while before, something of a pang leapt in my heart. I bade farewell there to that terrible chapter in my life forever,—bade farewell there to the Lost Cabin Mine.
"I will have to borrow from you again," said Apache Kid (the first speech he had spoken since leaving the Half-Way House), as we came loping into Kettle at three of the morning. "Give me fifty dollars, and we'll settle later."
I told him the money was as much his as mine, and gave him what he asked before we reined up at the hotel door, where a wild-faced lad took our horses. An effeminate-looking youth, with that peculiar stamp that comes to effeminate youths in the West,—as though they counterbalanced their effeminacy, in so rugged a place, by keeping quiet, and so held their own among the strenuous majority,—led us to a double-bedded room (for we were very sleepy and desired to rest), we carrying up our blankets and belongings with us. He set a lamp in the room, wished us good-night with a smile,—for it was nigh morning, really a new day,—and we sat in silence, while on the low ceiling the smoke of the lamp wavered.