Apache Kid was drawing the cinch tight on the pony I was to ride (the Italian was saddling the other), and he merely turned and shot the questioner such a look as made me feel—well, that I should not like to be the Italian.
I thought then that, for all his slim build, this partner of mine, so quiet, so deliberate, must have seen and done strange things in his day, and been in peculiar corners to learn a glance like that. If ever a look on a man's face could cow another, it was such a look as Apache Kid flung to the Italian then.
Back to the Chinese store we went, leading our steeds, and there roped on our pack.
"Do you sell rifles?" asked Apache Kid.
"Yes, sir, vely good line," and so Apache added a Winchester, which was thrust atop of the load, and two of the small boxes of cartridges.
This was just finished when a voice broke in: "Goin' prospectin'?"
We wheeled about to see a foolish-faced man, with shifty eyes and slavering mouth, standing by, with firm enough legs, to be sure, but his body swaying left and right from the hips as though it were set there on a swivel.
"Yes," said Apache.
"Going prospectin' without a pick or a hammer or a shu-huvel," said the man, and hiccoughed and dribbled again at the mouth, and then he sat down on a tree-stump and broke out in a horrible drunken weeping, the most distressful kind of intoxicated fool I ever saw, and moaned to himself: "Goin' prospectin' without a—with on'y a gun at the belt and a Winchester," and he put his hand to his forehead and, bending forward, wept copiously. I looked on the Chinaman who stood by, placid and expressionless, and I was ashamed of my race.
"For the love of God," said Apache, "let us get out of this pitiful hell— Good-bye, John," to the Chinaman, who raised his lean hand and waved in farewell in a gesture of the utmost suavity and respect, and then we struck south (the Chinaman entering his store), and left that pitiable creature slobbering upon the tree-stump, left the din and outcrying and hideousness behind us, my very stomach turning at the sounds, and Apache, too, I think, affected unpleasantly. We went directly to the south upon the track that led to the Placer Camp on Kettle River.