Pete only cut from the plug into his palm, and rolled the tobacco small for his corn-cob pipe. His winter servitude was ended, and he was master, the cargador before whom all men bow in the dread northlands. Mother went off content to carry her own water, and Pete, with something of a flourish, lighted his pipe.
"Mother!" Pete let out a sharp call, and forgetting her business, mother came quite humbly, as though to heel. "Yes, Pete?"
He pointed with his pipe at a distant horseman rounding the flank of the hill.
"Brooke?" she whispered, both gnarled rheumatic hands clutched at her heart.
"I reckon," said Pete cheerfully. "Thinks he's a circus procession. That sorrel's clattering a loose near-hind shoe, and her mouth just bleeding as he saws with that spade bit. He's a sure polecat. Trots down-hill, too, and suffers in his tail. Incompetent, mother. Look at his feet! He's bad as a stale salmon, rotten to the bones. Been drinking, too."
Brooke drew up and dismounted, leaving his rein on the horse's neck, instead of dropping it to the ground. When Brooke moved to sit on an aparejo, Pete ordered him to one of the kitchen boxes. "Not Bolt hisself may sit on my riggings," said the old gray cargador.
"I thought," said Brooke quite kindly, "that this harness was mine."
"A half-interest," said mother, "sure-ly."
"I fear," said Brooke, "you sort of misunderstood. Old Taylor did say something about your usefulness as a working partner, and, of course, if we hadn't canceled that preposterous contract with the Hudson's Bay Company, there's no doubt your knowledge of the country up north would have been worth paying for. It was, as you say, damned awkward about his being blind as a bat; in fact, I was put to quite a lot of trouble getting the agreement witnessed. However," he produced a document which mother snatched, "it's all there in black and white, and there's the old fool's signature—holds good in any court of law—proves that I've bought and paid for the whole atajo. You needn't claim I haven't a clear title—so you needn't stare at me as if I'd forged the signature. It's straight goods, I tell you."
Mother reeled backward, while she grabbed Pete's shoulders so that the agreement fluttered to Brooke's feet. She steadied herself, then with a husky croak, "You made Bolt sign that—blind, dying, so he dunno what's on the paper."