"He's gone by way of Johnstown," continued the wounded man. "If one of you cuts across the summit toward Shantung he's pretty sure to cut in across Pete's trail. Which is goin' to start? Well, you can match for the chance! Because him that comes back with Pete Reeve marked off the slate is a man!"
That chilly little silence made Bull's heart beat. To be called a man, to be praised by stern Bill Campbell—surely these were things to make anyone risk death!
"Is that the Pete Reeve," said Harry's voice, "that shot up Mike
Rivers over the hill to the Tompkins place, about four year back?"
"That's him. Why?"
Again the silence. Then Bull heard the old man cursing softly—meditatively, one might almost have said.
"Cut across for Johnstown," said Joe softly, "in a storm like this? They won't be no trails left to find above the timberline. It'd be sure death. Listen!"
There was a lull in the wind, and in the breeze that was left, they could hear the whisper of the snow crushing steadily against the window.
"It's heavy fall, right enough," declared Harry.
"And this Pete Reeve—why, he's a gunfighter, Dad."
"And what are you?" asked the old man. "Ain't I labored and slaved all my life to make you handy with guns? What for d'you think I wasted all them hours showin' you how to pull a trigger and where to shoot and how to get a gun out of the leather?"