“I didn’t tell you that I was a neighbor of yours,” he said by way of opening the conversation. “I spent the winter sledding in my outfit.”
“That so?” Murtry said with a mild simulation of interest. “Where you camped?”
Benton indicated the direction. “Right over there,” he said, “I’ve named it Benton Gulch.”
“You ain’t staked that little dry gulch?”
“Why, yes. You see, I believe there’s a little gold there—I don’t know how much—I’ve already done quite a bit of panning and I hope to——”
“You’re a fool!” Murtry interrupted in a rage. “If you don’t know that I own ev’ry drop of water in Caribou Crick, it’s time you was learnin’. How do you aim to work that gulch without water?”
“That’s what I came over to see you about,” said Benton. “I heard that it was your water and I thought that you would be glad to spare me a sluice head.” Benton was speaking calmly, in spite of the other’s belligerent attitude. “Of course,” he went on, “if the water in Caribou Crick should run low this summer or fall, I’d quit taking it out, but——”
“You’d quit takin’ it out!” Murtry cried. “You’re never goin’ to begin takin’ it out! If you ever start monkeyin’ with Caribou Crick, I’ll drill you so full of holes you’ll look like——”
Murtry’s anger was intensified by his failure to find the word he was seeking. “Say,” he cried, “you get clean off this claim! Beat it quick, while you’re all together!”
Benton was sitting at the rough table; he rose slowly. “Why certainly—if it’s your claim—I’ll leave.” He was speaking hesitantly but he was not afraid of the glowering bully who had commanded him to leave. He was simply surprised at the man’s unreasonable anger. “But even if I have no water, that gulch belongs to me, and I mean to hold it.”