“Yes, Joe your frien’.”
“I like you, Joe, and I’ll tell my father to be sure and hire you for a guide up in Maine, next October. I—I’ll tell him to give you more pay than the other guides get, too, if—if you’ll say nothing about this accident. Someone else can take the blame, for a change.”
“Yes, some boy he get bad talk. Not you.”
“That’s right!” Alec laughed again, a strained, hollow, mirthless laugh. “Joe, I know you admire my silver-handled knife; want it?”
“You no want it, Joe take it. Tanks.”
“Joe, you—you don’t like Hugh Hardin, do you?”
The halfbreed’s answer was merely an ambiguous grunt.
“Neither do I, just now,” said quick-tempered Alec Sands.
Joe said nothing. Doubtless he understood the hint.