We could all see ’em. It was packhorses creepin’ along. Behind ’em trailed a man ridin’, and that was Kultus Jake.
“Then what has happened?” somebody says.
Baldy he arrives first, snow on his hat two inches deep. He gets down and jumps some to shake off the snow, and then walks in through us and goes to the stove and takes a chair. Not a word said. Packhorses they arrives and stands around all over snow—stand sad and hangdog, like they was guilty and had gave up denyin’ it. Jake comes along a mile an hour, same as Baldy; and he gets down and jumps the snow off, and same as Baldy, he passes through us and goes to the stove. But he puts it between him and Baldy. Sits down and don’t look at Baldy. So we all comes back in and sits down, too—except Edmund. He goes behind his desk and stands up there with his spectacles pushed high.
“Well?” he says.
Baldy’s lips move, but nothin’ sounds.
“Well?” Edmund repeats. “Was the trail snowed up? Anybody dead?”
Jake clears his throat, but that’s all.
Then Baldy manages to talk. “No,” he says kind of croakin’; “trail wasn’t snowed up.”
“Not then, it wasn’t,” says Jake. “Nobody’s dead.”
Up flares Edmund’s temper. He swings a big hammer down on the counter with a bang, and he lets out one swear as thorough and bad as any Western man. Y’u’d been scared yourself if he’d aimed it at you. After all, Edmund had grubstaked ’em, though they didn’t know it.