Shon went over to the coat, did as Pourcette had done, and said: “Is it gone y’are, Jo, wid your slow tongue and your big heart? Wan by wan the lads are off.”
Pourcette, without any warning, began speaking, but in a very quiet tone at first, as if unconscious of the others:
“Poor Jo Gordineer! Yes, he is gone. He was my friend—so tall, and such a hunter! We were at the Ding Dong goldfields together. When luck went bad, I said to him: ‘Come, we will go where there is plenty of wild meat, and a summer more beautiful than in the south.’ I did not want to part from him, for once, when some miner stole my claim, and I fought, he stood by me. But in some things he was a little child. That was from his big heart. Well, he would go, he said; and we came away.”
He suddenly became silent; and shook his head, and spoke under his breath.
“Yes,” said Lawless quietly, “you went away. What then?”
He looked up quickly, as though just aware of their presence, and continued:
“Well, the other followed, as I said, and—”
“No, Pourcette,” interposed Lawless, “you didn’t say. Who was the other that followed?”
The old man looked at him gravely, and a little severely, and continued:
“As I said, Gawdor followed—he and an Indian. Gawdor thought we were going for gold, because I had said I knew a place in the north where there was gold in a river—I know the place, but that is no matter. We did not go for gold just then. Gawdor hated Jo Gordineer. There was a half-breed girl. She was fine to look at. She would have gone to Gordineer if he had beckoned, any time; but he waited—he was very slow, except with his finger on a gun; he waited too long.