“That's a lie,” retorted Rogers. “Whose smoke is that off yonder back of you?”
“I reckon you mean my camp-fire.”
“That's another lie. Some one's been throwing on wood, green wood, since we been standing here,” said Rogers with an ugly grin. “Look and see—the smoke'll tell you that as plain as it tells me.”
“You're plumb suspicious, Mr. Rogers, it's my camp; ain't I always been a friend?”
“You ain't friend to no man, unless it be to yourself, that's my idea of you,” said Rogers.
“It's my camp-fire I tell you—”
“Yes, and Basil's there, and the half-breed's there,” he took his eyes off Raymond's face, and for the first time noticed that he had exchanged his ragged uniform for an excellent suit of grey homespun. “You've crossed the range and been down into the valley. Now what are you doing here on the back track when you were all so keen for trying your luck in California?”
“Well,” said the deserter with a quick shift of ground, “maybe Basil is there, and maybe the half-breed is there; what does it signify?”
“Why are you following us?”
But at this Raymond shook his head vehemently. “Following you—and why'd we be following you? I'll tell you the truth, fact is, sometimes it gravels me to tell the truth; but with a friend—we're taking a party of Saints back to the Missouri. There was money in the job, and darn California anyhow; it's a long way off, and they say in the valley the bottom's dropped clean out of this here gold business. It's all rank foolishness, they are beginning to come back, and the Saints are feeding them and helping them on toward the States; we mighty soon got shut of that notion when we'd seen and talked with a few of them that'd crossed to the Coast; and when Young offered to hire us to take a score of his missionaries to the Missouri we jumped at the chance.”