ou--I wanted to
see--them all come true. If I can--I'll help you--from--the other side.
There's so much--more I want to say--if only--I had known---- Oh,
Bruce--my--li--ttle boy----" Her voice ended in a breath, and stopped.

II

"PARDNERS"

"Looks like you'd say somethin' about them pancakes instead of settin'
there shovelin'."

"Haven't I told you regular every morning for six months that they was
great pancakes? Couldn't you let me off for once?"

The two partners glared at each other across the clumsy table of hewn
pine. They looked like two wild men, as black eyes flashed anger, even
hate, into black eyes. Their hair was long and uneven, their features
disguised by black beards of many weeks' growth. Their miners' boots
were but ludicrous remnants tied on with buckskin thongs. Their clothes
hung in rags, and they ate with the animal-like haste and carelessness
of those who live alone.

The smaller of the two men rose abruptly, and, with a vicious kick at
the box upon which he had been sitting, landed it halfway across the
room. His cheeks and nose were pallid above his beard, his thin nostrils
dilated, and his hand shook as he reached for his rifle in the gun rack
made of deer horns nailed above the kitchen door. He was slender and
wiry of build, quick and nervous in his movements, yet they were almost
noiseless, and he walked with the padded soft-footedness of the preying
animal.

Bruce Burt lounged to the cabin door and looked after "Slim" Naudain as
he went to the river. Then he stepped outside, stooping to avoid
striking his head. He leaned his broad shoulder against the door jamb
and watched "Slim" bail the leaky boat and untie it from the willows.
While he filled and lighted his pipe, Bruce's eyes followed his partner
as he seated himself upon the rotten thwart and shoved into the river
with home-made oars that were little more than paddles. The river caught
him with the strength of a hundred eager hands, and whirled him,
paddling like a madman, broadside to the current. It bore him swiftly to
the roaring white rapids some fifty yards below, and the fire died in
Bruce's pipe as, breathless, he watched the bobbing boat.

"Slim'll cross in that water-coffin once too often," he muttered, and
Bruce himself was the best boatman the length of the dangerous river.

There were times when he felt that he almost hated Slim Naudain, and
this was one of them, yet fine lines of anxiety drew about his ey