“He’s a queer feller,” he said thoughtfully. Then he added: “You told him clear out ther’s to be no trading trip to Placer? An’ still he’s making ready a trip?”
The girl laughed shortly. There was no mirth in it. It was a little nervous expression of feeling.
“You just can’t get back of that feller’s mind,” she said. “Usak’s dead obstinate. He’s obstinate as a young bull caribou when he feels like it. It was when I told him it was your plan we shouldn’t make Placer. I sort of read it in his queer black eyes, even though he took the order without a kick. Maybe he was disappointed. You see, he’s got that swell black fox. Next day I found him fixing for a trip on his own. I asked him right away about it, an’ his answer left me worried an’ guessing. ‘That all right,’ he said, ‘I know us not mak Placer. So. Then I mak one big trip.’”
The girl’s imitation of the Indian’s broken talk brought a deepening smile to Bill’s eyes for all the concern her story inspired.
“I told him right away you guessed it best for him to stop around,” she went on. “An’ it was then he got mulish. He snapped me like an angry wolf. ‘Who this whiteman say I not mak big trip? Him not all thing, this man. No. I mak big trip.’ He went right on fixing his outfit after that and wouldn’t say another word. He’s right up ther’ in his shanty now. I saw the lamp burning as we came down. He means to go his trip, and-”
“Nothing’s goin’ to stop him.” The man’s jaws shut with a snap. “He’s surely got a mule beat.”
He remained buried in deep thought for some moments while the girl watched him, wondering anxiously at his interpretation of Usak’s attitude. She was filled with an unease she could not shake off.
Quite suddenly Bill’s manner underwent a change. He laughed quietly, and his gaze, which had passed to the dark river came again to the troubled face beside him.
“Just don’t worry a thing, Kid,” he said, with an assumption of lightness which drew a responsive sigh of relief. “It don’t matter. Ther’s the boys around, and Mike, and my bunch. Usak’s full of his own notions, an’ it’s best not to drive him too hard. If he guesses to make a trip, just let him beat it. No. Don’t you worry a thing.”
“No.”