"No, he ain't located here for nothing; you're right. That something happens to be necessity. My luck in my little speculations ran out first, and I had to leave. As to what I'm doing here—that's not to be talked about. Maybe prospecting for gold; maybe Injun trading; maybe putting daylight through stray travelers and vamoosing with their traps; maybe any or all of these things—but not likely. I ain't here for nothing. That's all I can say."
"Martin, we have done business together many a time; we were allies, if not friends, and I want to know how the case stands now. I don't want to pry and peer into your private affairs. Maybe I'd be bringing something to the light that wouldn't stand it so well; but, I've heard somewhat of you as I came in this direction. Of course I didn't know it was you I heard the talk about, and of course there is a chance of what I heard being either true or false, with a little extra weight on the truth. You remember how we separated, and I don't think you have any thing to complain of, or any charges of ill faith on my part to bring against me. Now, the question I want to ask is: Can we rely on each other as we could of old? A plain yes or no will make the best answer to the question."
"Well, Endicott, I haven't heard of you particularly, either good or bad, though I had an intimation that you were in the neighborhood. It makes no difference what reports have gone trailing toward the East, and I don't claim to know them; they're bad enough, no doubt. You ask me a question, and if you must have an answer, why all I can say, is: In some things, yes, in other things, no! Will that suit you, or shall I go ahead and explain?"
"What do you mean by yes?"
"I mean that, in the first place, I would rely on you just as much as I ever did, and not a particle more. In the second, whatever you get my word to, that you can depend on my carrying through; but if you think to find me ready to promise to any and every mad scheme, you are very much mistaken."
"Any thing that is honest, eh?"
A grim smile flitted over Martin's face at the mention of the word honest. It was gone in a moment though, and he proceeded:
"Yes, any thing that's honest. Now what is it that you have to propose? I don't suppose you would have made so much of an introductory if you had not had something behind it."
"You are partly right. My motto is business first and pleasure afterward, else I would have had a thousand things to say with regard to our mutual lives in the past few years. Yet I hardly know what I would say. I did not seek you; yet, since I have met you, I want to know if I can count upon your assistance in a little matter which, springing up suddenly, has found me unprepared to meet it."
"Then you didn't hunt up Back Load Trail for any special reason?"