“From Yetmore. He is a prospector whom Yetmore grub-stakes every summer.”
“‘Grub-stakes,’” repeated Joe, inquiringly.
“Yes. Some prospectors go out on their own account, you know, but some of them are ‘grub-staked.’ This man is employed by Yetmore. He sends him out prospecting every spring, providing him with tools and ‘grub’ and paying him some small wages. Whether it is part of the bargain that Long John is to get any share of what he may find, I don’t know, but probably it is—that is the general rule. There is very little doubt that Yetmore has sent him out now, just as Tom has sent us out, to see which stream the lead-ore in the pool came from.”
“Not a doubt of it. Well, shall we go ahead and speak to him?”
Before I could reply, the man himself rose up, looked about him, and at once espied us. At seeing us standing there silently watching him, he gave a not-unnatural start of alarm, but perceiving that he had only two boys to deal with, even if we were pretty big, he climbed up the bank and advanced towards us with a threatening air.
Standing six feet five inches in his over-shoes, he was a rather formidable-looking object as he came striding down upon us, a shovel in one hand and a hatchet in the other; but as we knew him by reputation for a blusterer and a coward, we awaited his coming without any alarm for our safety.
Long John Butterfield was a well-known character in Sulphide. Though a prospector all summer, he was a bar-room loafer all winter, spending his time hanging around the saloons, and doing only work enough in the way of odd jobs to keep himself from starving until spring came round again, when Yetmore would provide for him once more.
It had formerly been his ambition to pass for a “bad man,” though he found it difficult to maintain that reputation among the unbelieving citizens of Sulphide, who knew that he valued his own skin far too highly to risk it seriously. He had been wont to call himself “The Wolf,” desiring to be known by that title as sounding sufficiently fierce and “bad,” and being of a most unprepossessing appearance, with his matted hair, retreating forehead, long, sharp nose and projecting ears, he did represent a wolf pretty well—though, still better, a coyote.
As the people of Sulphide, however, declined to take him at his own valuation, greeting his frequent outbreaks of simulated ferocity with derisive jeers—even the small boys used to scoff at him—he was reduced to practising his arts upon strangers, which he always hastened to do when he thought it was not likely to be dangerous. Unluckily for him, though, he once tried one of his tricks upon an inoffensive newcomer, with a result so unexpected and unwelcome that his only desire thereafter was that people should forget that he had ever called himself “The Wolf”—a desire in which his many acquaintances, whether working-men or loafers, readily accommodated him. But as they playfully substituted the less desirable title of “The Yellow Pup,” Long John gained little by the move.