As a king about to die he looked at his heirs and
found them strong and sufficient and pleasing to the
eye. Nowhere in the mountains were there two
boys as tall, as straight, as deadly with rifle and
revolver, as fierce, as relentless, as these two boys
of his. He had sharpened their tempers, and he
rejoiced in the sullen ferocity with which they looked
at him now, unloving, cunning, biding their time and
finding that it had almost come. But he was not
yet done. His body was wrecked; there remained
his mind, and they would find it a great power.
But he did not talk until the lights had been put out
and the three youths were in their separate bunks.
Then, without the light to show them his helpless
body, in the darkness, which would give his mind a
freer play, he began to tell his story.
It was a long narrative. Far back in the years
he had prospected with a youth named Pete Reeve.
They had located a claim and they had gone to town
together to celebrate. In the celebration he had
drunk with Reeve till the boy stupefied. Then
he had induced Reeve to gamble for his share of the
claim and had won it. Afterward Pete swore to
be even with him. But the years had gone by without
another meeting of the men.
Only today, riding through the mountains, he had come
on a dried-up wisp of a man with long, iron-gray hair,
a sharp, withered face, and hands like the claws of
a bird. He rode a fine bay gelding, and had stopped
Bill to ask some questions about the region above the
timberline because he was drifting south and intended
to cross the summits. Bill had described the
way, and suddenly, out of their talk, came the revelation
of their identities—the one was Bill Campbell,
the other was Pete Reeve.
At this point in the story Bull heaved himself slowly,
softly up on one arm to listen. He was beginning
to get the full sense of the words for the first time.
This narrative was like a book done in a commoner
language.
CHAPTER 4
The tale halted. To be defeated is one thing;
to be forced to confess defeat is another. Uncle
Bill determined on the bitterer alternative.
“He made a clean fight,” declared Uncle
Bill. “First he cussed me out proper.
Then he went for his gat and he beat me to the draw.
They ain’t no disgrace to that. You’ll
learn pretty soon that anybody might get beaten sooner
or later—if he fights enough men. And
my gun hung in the leather. Before I got it on
him he’d shot me clean through the right shoulder—a
placed shot, boys. He wanted to land me there.
It tumbled me off my hoss. I rolled away and
tried to get to my gun that had fallen on the ground.
He shot me ag’in through the leg and stopped
me.
“Then he got off his hoss and fixed up the wounds.
He done a good job, as you seen. ‘Bill’
says he, ’you ain’t dead; you’re
worse’n dead. That right arm of yours is
going to be stiff the rest of your days. You’re
a one-armed man from now on, and that one arm is the
worst you got.’
