"Why, each of you has got one. You hev young William and young William hez you."
"Well, young William and me have talked about this some, not much, but we came straight to the point. For such a big hunt as ours, through dangers piled on dangers, we need a third man, one that's got a strong heart and a cheerful soul, one that can shoot straighter than anybody else in the world, one whose picture, if I could take it, would be the exact picture of you, Tom Bent."
"But I ain't done nothin' to come in as a pardner."
"Neither did I, but Will took me in as a guide, hunter and fighting man. Don't you understand, Giant, that to get the Clarke gold we'll have to pay the price? We'll have to fight and fight, and we'll have to risk our lives a thousand times apiece. Why, in a case like this, you're worth a cool hundred thousand dollars."
"Then I come in fur a tenth—ef we git it."
"You come in for the same share as the rest, share and share alike, but I will say this to you, Little Giant, that we expect you to do the most tremendous fighting the world has ever seen, we expect you to wipe out whole bands of Sioux and Blackfeet by yourself while Will and me stand by and rest, and, after it's all over, we expect you to sit down and whistle an hour or two, until you soothe us to sleep."
"Then, on them conditions I come in as a full pardner," said Giant Tom, and he grinned with pleasure, the most amazing grin that Will had ever seen. It spread slowly across his face, until the great crack seemed to reach almost to each ear, revealing a splendid set of powerful white teeth, without a flaw. Above the chasm two large blue eyes glistened and glowed with delight. It was all so infectious, so contagious that both Will and Boyd grinned in return. They were not only securing for a perilous quest a man who was beyond compare, but they were also giving the most exquisite mental pleasure to a likable human being.
"It shorely does look," said the Little Giant, "ez ef my luck wuz goin' to hev a turn. At any rate, I'll be with you boys, in the best company I've had fur years."
"You and the mules rest a day," said Boyd, "and then we'll be off. We'll keep to the mountains for a while, and then we'll curve back to the plains, where we'll take up the line laid down on the map, and where the going is easier. Maybe we can dodge the Sioux."
The Little Giant made his bed under one of the trees, and he slept very soundly that night, eating prodigiously in the morning. The three were discussing the advisability of leaving at once or of waiting until the dusk for departure, when Will, happening to look toward the east, saw what he took at first to be a tiny cloud in the clear blue sky. He carried his glasses over his shoulders, and he raised them at once. The hunter and the Little Giant had noticed his act.