After supper the men drifted out by twos and threes for their nightly rounds of the camp's tawdry places of amusement. Waseche Bill, declining their invitations, sat alone by the stove, thinking. The man was lonely. Until this night he had had no time to realize how much he missed his little partner, and his thoughts lingered over the long evenings when they talked together in the cabin, and the boy would read aloud from the illustrated magazines.
A chair was drawn up beside his, and the man called Joe laid a large hand upon his knee.
"This here Sam Morgan's boy—does he favour Sam?" he asked.
"Like as two bullets—barrin' size," replied Waseche, without raising his eyes.
"I s'pose you talked it over with the kid 'fore you come away?" Waseche looked up.
"Why, no! I done left a lettah, an' come away while he was sleepin'."
"D'ye think he'll stand fer that?"
"I reckon he's got to. Course, it'll be kind o' hard on him, fust off, me'be. Same as me. But it's bettah fo' him in the end. Why, his claim's good fo' a million! An' the boys up to Ten Bow, they'll see him through—McDougall, an' Dutch Henry, an' the rest. They-all think as much of the boy as what I do." The big man at Waseche's side shook his head doubtfully.
"I know'd Sam Morgan well," he said, fixing the other with his eyes. "He done me a good turn onct an' he never asked no odds off'en no one. Now, if the kid's jes' like him—s'pose he follers ye?"