In the first place, the confounded,
ignorant fools did me a very great injustice, and I've never taken the
trouble to explain to them wherein they were wrong. I came into this
country with a partner six years ago--a white man, if ever one
lived--about the only real man friend I ever had. He was known to have
over three thousand dollars on his person. He took sick and died the
second year, at the head of the Peace, in midwinter. I buried him;
couldn't take him out. Somehow the yarn got to going in the Meadows
that I'd murdered him for his money. The gossip started there because
we had an argument about outfitting while we were there, and roasted
each other as only real pals can. So they got it into their heads I
killed him, and tried to have the provincial police investigate. It
made me hot, and so I wouldn't explain to anybody the circumstances,
nor what became of Dave's three thousand, which happened to be five
thousand by that time, and which I sent to his mother and sister in New
York, as he told me to do when he was dying. When they got to hinting
things the next time I hit the Meadows, I started in to clean out the
town. I think I whipped about a dozen men that time.
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