It was Perse, who had flung himself into the chair usually at the disposal of Big Bill on his evening visits. His small body was lost in the ample rawhide seat.
“I call that dirt mean,” he went on, in an aggrieved treble. “What you makin’ the party for, Bill? Ha’ you made the big ‘strike’?” Then his intelligent grey eyes turned shrewdly on the Kid. “Guess I know though. I’ll—”
For a second time he hastily vacated the room. The ready hand of the mother, quick as it was, had no time to descend before he had jumped clear.
“Yes,” she cried after him, “you beat it, and send Clarence along right at once. He’s working around with Usak an’ Alg in the fur store. You ken send Mary Justicia right along, too.”
Then she turned to the smiling man who found keen amusement in the outrageous Perse.
“He’s an imp, that’s what he is,” she declared, while the Kid moved quickly to the stove and shook it down. “But that’s real kind of you, Bill. I’d like fine to come along and eat with you, but I guess these ‘God’s Blessings’ o’ mine ’ud run wild without me. Would you fancy takin’ Mary Justicia along, and that bright little feller, Perse, an’ Clarence, an’ the Kid? I’ll pass Perse a word and set him behavin’ right. He’ll make one more bit for you to feed than you reckon, but I don’t guess that’ll worry your outfit. He can take his own platter an’ pannikin. He’d be mighty grieved not to go. You see, he thinks Big Bill the greatest proposition north o’ ‘sixty’—seeing he guesses ther’s gold on Caribou.”
The woman’s eyes twinkled with humour as she concluded with the now time-honoured jest at her visitor’s expense.
Bill nodded good-humouredly, and his eyes sought the face of the girl standing in the background beside the stove.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be real glad for the boy to come along.” He laughed. “Ther’ won’t be anything fancy for him t’ eat. It’s just duck, an’ some trout, an’ some canned truck. But I’d sure be glad. Wot you say, Kid?” he asked, his tone not without a shade of concern. “Will you come along up with us? I’d been mighty thankful for your Mum to share in, but I sort of knew beforehand the social whirl on Caribou hadn’t a claim on her to compare with her ‘God’s Blessings.’ Will you come? Chilcoot reckons he’s all sorts of a feller at entertaining women folk to supper. An’ maybe he’ll start in to yarn of the gold trail, an’ we’ll be hard set to stop him. Ther’s an elegant moon for the trip. And you’ll all be right back before she sets.”
His manner was light but behind it was real earnestness, and a shade of anxiety. Hesther, all the mother in her alert, was swift to detect it. She smiled encouragingly round on the girl.