“Wot in the name o’ blazes––” he cried.
But Scipio did not let him continue.
“I knew ther’ wa’n’t no gold showin’ on my claim,” he hurriedly explained. “So I’ll jest hand you back your dollars.”
“Square-toed mackinaw!” the gambler cried, his face scarlet. Then he broke out into one of his harsh laughs. “Say,” he went on, with pretended severity, “you can’t squeal that way. I’m in ha’f your claim, an’ I ain’t lettin’ up my holt on it fer––fer nobody an’ nuthin’. Get that right here. You can’t bluff me.”
Scipio flushed. He somehow felt very small. The last thing he wanted Bill to think was that he was trying to do him an injury.
“I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “Y’see, I thought, you needing to talk to me so bad, you wanted, maybe, to quit my claim.”
He turned away, gazing down the wood-lined river. Somehow he could not face the gambler’s stern eyes. Had he seen the sudden softening in them the moment the other was sure he was unobserved, he might have been less troubled. But the gambler had no soft side when men’s eyes were upon him.
“’Tain’t about your claim I need to talk,” Bill said, after a brief pause. His voice was less harsh, and there was an unusual thoughtfulness in its tone. “It’s––it’s––Say, Zip, I ain’t fergot our talk out there on the trail.” He nodded his head out in the direction of Spawn City. “You mind that talk when you was puttin’ up that fool proposition o’ handin’ James that kid?”
Scipio’s eyes had come back to his companion, and their expression had suddenly dropped to one of hopeless regret. His heart was stirred to its depths by the reference to the past trouble which lay like a cankerous sore so deep down in it.
He nodded. But otherwise he had no words.