“I don’t know about damned and cub,” Hi said. “I’m not your father.”
The man stared at him for an instant with a look of fury, which died on the instant into contempt.
“I was talking about Wigmore,” he said. “If you think that this is a Sunday school, you’ll learn it isn’t.”
“I think no such thing,” Hi said. “But I won’t take ‘damned young cub’ from a hundred yards Blue, let alone his second cousin.”
“The hell you won’t,” the man said. “Well, I always liked guts, so we’ll reckon it not said.”
“All right,” Hi said. “As we were. I really thought that you were Wigmore. The book was from his mother, and the locket has a picture of his girl inside it. That was what made me think that he must have people alive.”
“He was a very odd fish, Wigmore,” the man said. “He was a man under a cloud. When you come to one of these solitary men, prospecting in a place like this, you may always be sure that there’s something wrong. He never talked about his past; but he let you see he had one. He drank like a fish, too.”
“Did he ever find any gold?” Hi asked.
“He was one of these pleasure-miners. They always get enough to pay their Indios and keep themselves in cartridges. They go brown after a bit; that is, they turn Indian.”
By this time, he had slung his rifle by its bandolier to the crutch in the post. Hi could see the initials D. W. burned upon the stock: it had been Wigmore’s rifle in the past. Hi was uneasy at the way the man spoke about Wigmore: he wished to know more.