“What might your name be, stranger?”
“Karle Lott.”
“Lie number one! It’s Jose Cantine. And who’s the woman with you?”
“My wife!” He resentfully shook off Bassett’s hand.
“Lie number two, you hound! It’s Eric Sark’s wife—vamoosed with in White Pass City months and months back! Aw, hold up!” Bassett seized the hand that dived under the parka and jerked it forth again. “You don’t go gunnin’ with me. If you was fair game I’d sure let you, but you ain’t. My pardner Sark’s got a mortgage on you. And if I was over in his place establishin’ relay camps on another trail and he was here in mine you’d pay right now. I’m sufferin’ sorry he ain’t here, but all the same it’s a bloody short morator-ee-um you’re gittin’, Cantine. Savvy? That’s why I’m lettin’ you stay hull-skinned.”
“Well, if you’re lettin’ me stay whole-skinned what you crossin’ me for then?” fiercely demanded the man in the parka, anger darkening his already dark eyes, tensing sharper his already sharp features. “Mind, I ain’t admittin’ I’m Cantine either. But if I was Cantine, and you ain’t goin’ to perforate Cantine on sight, what in Hades do you mean?”
“Mean?” echoed Bassett. “Your gall is sure chilled steel and case-hardened on top. Do you think as me or any other white man’s goin’ to eat, drink or sleep with or breathe the same air as you? You as broke the bond of bread and blanket, the Northland law as no man ever breaks, and lives to boast of it! Days on end I seen you sit at table with my pardner Sark under his own roof in White Pass City. Nights on end I seen you smoke by his fireside and bed down in his blankets. And with the guile of your stinkin’ soul you was plannin’ and executin’ his betrayal every blasted minute of the time!
“Then ag’in, do you think as any woman in this camp’s goin’ to suffer the companionship of yon female you call your wife who’s ten times guiltier’n you? The girls of Happy Camp is slightly frivolous and not what you’d term pernickety, but they draw the line at her. And I tell you, Cantine, I draw the line at you. I wouldn’t deserve to be called Sark’s pardner if I didn’t. I wouldn’t deserve to be called a white man if I didn’t. I’m strong for sanitation here. The likes of you two is stench and putrefaction in a healthy place. Savvy what I mean? You git to blazes outa Happy’ Camp!”
Bassett released the other’s wrist as he spoke, and the man, his lips drawn up in a wolf-dog’s snarl, stepped back a yard.
“I’ll be bludgeoned if we do!” he snapped. “You ain’t proved anything yet. Anyway there ain’t anything to prove.”