'That's what I'm after for camp,' said McLean. 'All of us is out on a hunt to-day—except him.'
'How many are yu' now?'
'The whole six.'
'Makin' money?'
'Oh, some days the gold washes out good in the pan, and others it's that fine it'll float off without settlin'.'
'So Hank ain't huntin' to-day?'
'Huntin'! We left him layin' out in that clump o'brush below their cabin. Been drinkin' all night.'
The Virginian broke off a piece of the Hoodoo mud-rock from the weird eroded pillar that we stood beside. He threw it into a bank of last year's snow. We all watched it as if it were important. Up through the mountain silence pierced the long quivering whistle of a bull-elk. It was like an unearthly singer practising an unearthly scale.
'First time she heard that,' said McLean, 'she was scared.'
'Nothin' maybe to resemble it in Austria,' said the Virginian.
'That's so,' said McLean. 'That's so, you bet! Nothin' just like Hank over there, neither.'
'Well, flesh is mostly flesh in all lands, I reckon,' said the Virginian. 'I expect yu' can be drunk and disorderly in every language. But an Austrian Hank would be liable to respect her crucifix.'
'That's so!'
'He ain't made her quit it yet?'
'Not him. But he's got meaner.'
'Drunk this mawnin', yu' say?'
'That's his most harmless condition now.'
'Nobody's in camp but them two? Her and him alone?'
'Oh, he dassent touch her.'
'Who did he tell that to?'
'Oh, the camp is backin' her. The camp has explained that to him several times, you bet! And what's more, she has got the upper hand of him herself. She has him beat.'
'How beat?'
'She has downed him with her eye. Just by endurin' him peacefully; and with her eye. I've saw it. Things changed some after yu' pulled out. We had a good crowd still, and it was pleasant, and not too lively nor yet too slow. And Willomene, she come more among us. She'd not stay shut in-doors, like she done at first. I'd have like to've showed her how to punish Hank.'
'Afteh she had downed yu' with her eye?' inquired the Virginian.
Young McLean reddened, and threw a furtive look upon me, the stranger, the outsider. 'Oh, well,' he said, 'I done nothing onusual. But that's all different now. All of us likes her and respects her, and makes allowances for her bein' Dutch. Yu' can't help but respect her. And she shows she knows.'
'I reckon maybe she knows how to deal with Hank,' said the Virginian.
