"Let me stay with you. If at
any time I hamper you, or can not keep the pace, then leave me to
shift for myself; but don't make me go until I weaken. Let me stay."
Fire and fearlessness spoke in Joe's every word, and his gray eyes
contracted with their peculiar steely flash. Plain it was that,
while he might fail to keep pace with Wetzel, he did not fear this
dangerous country, and, if it must be, would face it alone.
Wetzel extended his broad hand and gave his comrade's a viselike
squeeze. To allow the lad to remain with him was more than he would
have done for any other person in the world. Far better to keep the
lad under his protection while it was possible, for Joe was taking
that war-trail which had for every hunter, somewhere along its
bloody course, a bullet, a knife, or a tomahawk. Wetzel knew that
Joe was conscious of this inevitable conclusion, for it showed in
his white face, and in the resolve in his big, gray eyes.
So there, in the shade of a towering oak, the Indian-killer admitted
the boy into his friendship, and into a life which would no longer
be play, but eventful, stirring, hazardous.
"Wal, lad, stay," he said, with that rare smile which brightened his
dark face like a ray of stray sunshine. "We'll hang round these
diggins a few days. First off, we'll take in the lay of the land.
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