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Updated: June 13, 2025
"I'm surely glad I'm going to have a companion," he told her. "I won't miss Ez " But just then remembrance came to him, cutting the word off short. The letter he carried in his pocket contained certain advice in regard to silence, and perhaps now was a good time to follow it. There was no need to tell the people of Snowy Gulch about Ezram and the claim.
They took up this creek here a ways, through Spruce Pass, and over to Yuga River the country that kind of a crazy old chap named Hiram Melville, who died here a few weeks ago, has always prospected." The stranger marvelled that his old listener should have suddenly gone quite pale. Ezram had only a moment's further conversation with his new friend.
He turned one fleeting glance of infinite, inexpressible gratitude toward Ezram the man who had brought him here and who now was busily engaged in unpacking the canoe and making camp then looked back to his forests. The wind brought the wood smells, spruce and moldering earth and a thousand more no man could name. The great, watchful, brooding spirit of the forest went in to him.
His face underwent a tangible change. The lines deepened, the lips set in a hard line, the eyes were like those of a reptile, cold, passionless, unutterably terrible. His face was pale like the paleness of death, but it appeared more like hard, white metal than flesh. His mind began to work clear again; he began to understand. Ezram had been shot, murdered by the men who had jumped his claim.
If Ezram had already made his presence known and was camping somewhere in the hills about, there was no reason immediately evident why Neilson should deny his presence. Ben found himself wondering whether by any chance Ezram had been delayed along the trail, perhaps had even lost his way, and had not yet put in an appearance.
And to his vast amazement the stranger accepted the offer in his next breath. "It's worth something to bring it up here, you dub," Ezram informed his young partner, when the latter accused him of profiteering.
Still with the same deathly pallor he crept over the dead leaves to Ezram's feet. His hands were perfectly steady as he unlooped the laces, one after another, and quietly pulled off the right boot. In the boot leg, just as Ezram had promised, Ben found a scrap of white paper. He spread it on his knee, and unfolded it with care.
His eyes protruded, perspiration gleamed on his brow, he talked foolishly and incessantly to Ezram, the fish, the river-gods, and himself. Ezram, something of an old Isaac Walton himself, managed the canoe with unusual dexterity and chuckled in the contagion of Ben's delight. And lo in a moment more the thing was done.
Ezram had been faithful to the last: To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: In case of my death I leave all I die possessed of including my brother Hiram's claim near Yuga River to my pard and buddy, Ben Darby. The document was as formal as Ezram could make it, with a carefully drawn seal, and for all its quaint wording, it was a will to stand in any court.
He had read the letter the copy of which he carried but once, and evidently the name of the man Ezram had been warned against had made no lasting impression on Ben's mind. "All right. Maybe I'll look him up." Ben turned, then made his way up the long, straggly row of unpainted shacks that marked the village street.
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