“Simeon Woodley,” he says, “I should have been happy to meet you at any other time, but not now.”
“Why, Clancy!” returns the hunter, supremely astonished at the coldness with which his warm advances have been received. “Surely you know I’m yur friend?”
“Right well I know it.”
“Wal, then, believin’ you to be dead—tho’ I for one never felt sure o’t—still thinking it might be—didn’t I do all my possible to git justice done for ye?”
“You did. I’ve heard all—everything that has happened. Too much I’ve heard. O God! look there! Her grave—my murdered mother!”
“That’s true. It killed the poor lady, sure enough.”
“Yes; he killed her.”
“I needn’t axe who you refar to. I heerd you mention the name as I got up. We all know that Dick Darke has done whatever hez been done. We hed him put in prison, but the skunk got away from us, by the bribin’ o’ another skunk like hisself. The two went off thegither, an’ no word’s ever been since heerd ’bout eyther. I guess they’ve put for Texas, whar every scoundrel goes nowadays. Wal, Lordy! I’m so glad to see ye still alive. Won’t ye tell me how it’s all kim about?”
“In time I shall—not now.”
“But why are ye displeezed at meetin’ me—me that mayent be the grandest, but saitinly one o’ the truest an’ fastest o’ yur friends?”