“Not fur from my place,” Black went on, ignoring the silence. “But I’ll be dawg-goned if it wasn’t ’most all I could do to break through the drifts. If I’d ’a’ known it was so bad I’m blamed if I wouldn’t ’a’ stayed right by my own fireside an’ read that book my sister give me twenty-odd years ago. Its a right good book, I been told, an’ I been waitin’ till I broke my laig to read it. Funny about that, too. The only time I ever bust my laig an’ got stove up proper was ’way down on Wild Cat Creek. The doc kep’ me flat on a bunk three weeks, an’ that book ‘David Coppermine’ a whole day away from me up in the hills.”
“David Copperfield,” suggested Tug.
“Tha’s right, too. But it sure fooled me when I looked into it onct. It ain’t got a thing to do with the Butte mines or the Arizona ones neither. Say, Jake, what about that tobacco? Can you lend me the loan of a sack?”
Prowers pointed to a shelf above the table. He was annoyed at Black. It was like his shiftlessness not to keep enough tobacco on hand. Of all the hours in the year, why should he butt in at precisely this one? He was confoundedly in the way. The cattleman knew that he could not go on with this thing now. Don was not thoroughgoing enough. He would do a good many things outside the law, but they had to conform to his own peculiar code. He had joined in the cattle stampede only after being persuaded that nobody would be hurt by it. Since then Jake had not felt that he was dependable. The homesteader was suffering from an attack of conscience.
Cig had wakened when the rush of cold air from the open door had swept across the room. He sat up now, yawning and stretching himself awake.
“What a Gawd-forsaken country!” he jeered. “Me for de bright lights of li’l’ ol’ New York. If Cig ever lands in de Grand Central, he’ll stick right on de island, b’lieve me. I wisht I was at Mike’s Place right dis minute. A skoit hangs out dere who’s stuck on yours truly. Some dame, I’ll tell de world.” And he launched into a disreputable reminiscence.
Nobody echoed his laughter. Hollister was disgusted. Black did not like the tramp. The brain of Prowers was already spinning a cobweb of plots.
Cig looked round. What was the matter with these boobs, anyhow? Didn’t they know a good story when they heard one?
“Say, wot’ell is dis—a Salvation Army dump before de music opens up?” he asked, with an insulting lift of the upper lip.
Tug strapped on his skis, always with an eye on Prowers.