"Yes."
Bill sat on the boulder Charley had used as a mooring. He had had his sleep, but a certain weariness still remained.
"You'd stake a roll on Charley," he said, with an upward glance of amusement that was lost in the darkness.
"Sure." Kars gave a short laugh. "He's a mascot. It's always been that way since I grabbed him when he quit the penitentiary for splitting another neche's head open in a scrap over a Breed gal. Charley's got all the brains of his race, and none of its virtues. But he's got virtues of a diff'rent sort. They're sometimes found in white folk."
"You mean he's loyal."
"That's it. Every pocket he's got is stuffed full of it. He'll find a trail or break his fool neck—because I'm needing one. He's the sort of boy, if I needed him to shoot up a feller, it wouldn't be sufficient acting the way I said. He'd shoot up his whole darn family, too, and thieve their blankets, even if he didn't need 'em. He's quite a boy—when you got him where you need him. I——"
Kars broke off listening acutely. He turned his head with that instinct of avoiding the night breeze. Bill, too, was listening, his watchful eyes turned northward.
The moments grew. The splutter of rifle fire still haunted the night. But, for all its breaking of the stillness, the muffled sound of a paddle grew out of the distance. Kars sighed a relief he would not have admitted.
"Back to—schedule," he said. "Guess it needs a half hour of dawn."
There was no muffle to the sound of the paddle now, and the waiting men understood. The Indian was up against the full strength of the heavy stream, and, light as was his craft, it was no easy task to breast it. For some minutes the rhythmic beat went on. Then the little vessel grated directly opposite them, with an exactness of judgment in the darkness that stirred admiration. A moment later Peigan Charley was giving the results of his expedition in the language of his boss, of which he considered himself a perfect master.