They joked with one
another, and with the passers-by, in a meaningless tongue, and their
great chests rumbled with cavern-echoing laughs. Men stood aside for
them, and looked after them enviously; for they took the rises of the
trail on the run, and rattled down the counter slopes, and ground the
iron-rimmed wheels harshly over the rocks. Plunging through a dark
stretch of woods, they came out upon the river at the ford. A drowned
man lay on his back on the sand-bar, staring upward, unblinking, at the
sun. A man, in irritated tones, was questioning over and over,
"Where's his pardner? Ain't he got a pardner?" Two more men had
thrown off their packs and were coolly taking an inventory of the dead
man's possessions. One called aloud the various articles, while the
other checked them off on a piece of dirty wrapping-paper. Letters and
receipts, wet and pulpy, strewed the sand. A few gold coins were
heaped carelessly on a white handkerchief. Other men, crossing back
and forth in canoes and skiffs, took no notice.
The Scandinavians glanced at the sight, and their faces sobered for a
moment. "Where's his pardner? Ain't he got a pardner?" the irritated
man demanded of them. They shook their heads. They did not understand
English. They stepped into the water and splashed onward. Some one
called warningly from the opposite bank, whereat they stood still and
conferred together.
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