“You are Clarence,” he said, with quiet friendliness. Then his gaze rested thoughtfully upon the inscrutable eyes, and harshly moulded features of the Indian. “And you are Usak.”
It was the white youth who replied. He nodded while the Indian sat searching the whitemen’s faces with a gaze that was almost lost in eyes narrowed down to the merest slits.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Gold men on the trail. My name’s Wilder. Bill Wilder.”
The Indian raised one arm and indicated the others.
“Him men, too? What you call ’em?”
His young white boss having answered the first question Usak had no scruple but to take up the rest of the matter himself.
“Chilcoot Massy and Red Mike Partners with me. And we come from Placer.”
Wilder’s ready reply was in studied friendliness. But his keen eyes searched the Indian’s face, which was completely expressionless. The dusky face had neither friendliness nor antagonism. Yet it was potential for either under the harsh mask which Nature had set upon it.
Chilcoot and Mike left the situation in the hands of their chief, and simply sat waiting and curious. The white boy afforded them little concern. It was the Indian, with his grim manner, and his long, old-fashioned rifle that claimed their whole attention, as it did their chief’s.