"That's Mac's fault," said the other fellow coolly; "he's master of ceremonies in these diggin's, and has forgotten his business. They call me Genesee Jack mostly, and I know the Kootenai hills a little."
"Indeed, then, he does Mr. Hardy," said MacDougall, finding his voice. "Ye'll find no Siwash born on the hills who knows them better than does Genesee, only he's been bewitched like, by picks and shovels an' a gulch in the Maple range, for so long it's a bit strange to see him actin' as guide; but you're a lucky man to be gettin' him, Mr. Hardy, I'll tell ye that much."
"I am willing to believe it," said Hardy frankly. "Could you start at once with us, in the morning?"
"I reckon so."
"I will furnish you a good horse," began the ranchman; but Genesee interrupted, shaking his head with a gesture of dissent.
"No, I think not," he said in the careless, musical voice that yet could be so decided in its softness; and he whistled softly, as a cricket chirrups, and the brown mare came to him with long, cat-like movements of the slender limbs, dropping her head to his shoulder.
"This bit of horse-flesh is good enough for me," he said, slipping a long, well-shaped hand over the silky cheek; "an' where I go, Mowitza goes—eh, pet?"
The mare whinnied softly as acknowledgment of the address, and Hardy noticed with admiration the fine points in her sinewy, supple frame.
"Mowitza," he repeated. "That in Chinook means the deer, does it not—or the elk; which is it? I haven't been here long enough to pick up much of the jargon."
"Well, then, ye'll be hearin' enough of it from Genesee," broke in MacDougall. "He'll be forgettin' his native language in it if he lives here five years longer; an'—"