“If we had food enough and time, we might afford to waste them discussing each other's personal appearance. I propose we talk to some purpose.”
“Talking sure burns up the food.” The packer waited.
“I wish I knew what my father was doing with himself, all those years when his family were giving him the honors of the dead.”
“I warned ye about this pumping out old shafts. You can't tell what you'll find in the bottom. I suppose you know there are things in this world, Boy, a good deal worse than death?”
“Desertion is worse. It is not my father's death I want explained, it is his life, your life, in secret, these twenty years! Can you explain that?”
The packer doubled his bony fist and brought it down on the bunk-side. “Now you talk like a man! I been waiting to hear you say that. Yes, I can answer that question, if you ain't afeard of the answer!”
“I am keeping alive to hear it!” said Paul in a guarded voice.
“You might say you're keeping me alive to tell it. It's a good thing to git off of one's mind; but it's a poor thing to hand over to a son. All I've got to leave ye, though: the truth if you can stand it! Where do you want I should begin?”
“At the night when you came back to One Man Station.”
“How'd you know I come back?”