"I ain't lettin' no judge and jury do my business. I'm for certain sure,
not for p'r'aps! An' I want to do it myself. Clint was only twenty. Like
boys we was together. I was eighteen when I married, an' he come when she
went--jest a year--jest a year. An' ever since then we lived together,
him an' me, an' shot together, an' trapped together, an' went
gold-washin' together on the Cariboo, an' eat out of the same dish, an'
slept under the same blanket, and jawed together nights--ever since he
was five, when old Mother Lablache had got him into pants, an' he was fit
to take the trail."
The old man stopped a minute, his whipcord neck swelling, his lips
twitching. He brought a fist down on the table with a bang. "The biggest
little rip he was, as full of fun as a squirrel, an' never a smile-o-jest
his eyes dancin', an' more sense than a judge. He laid hold o' me, that
cub did--it was like his mother and himself together; an' the years
flowin' in an' peterin' out, an' him gettin' older, an' always jest the
same. Always on rock-bottom, always bright as a dollar, an' we livin' at
Black Nose Lake, layin' up cash agin' the time we was to go South, an'
set up a house along the railway, an' him to git married.
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