"There's nothing more to be said," he replied.
"But ther' is, Padre. There sure is," cried Buck, stepping over to him and laying one hand on the great shoulder nearest him. "I get all you say. I've got it long ago. You bin worryin' to say all this since ever you got back from sellin' the farm. An' it's like you. But you an' me don't jest figger alike. You got twenty more years of the world than me, so your eyes look around you different. That's natural. You're guessin' that hill is an opportunity for me. Wal, I'm guessin' it ain't. Mebbe it is for others, but not for me. I got my opportunity twenty years ago, an' you give me that opportunity. I was starvin' to death then, an' you helped me out. You're my opportunity, an' it makes me glad to think of it. Wher' you go I go, an' when we both done, why, I guess it won't be hard to see that what I done an' what you done was meant for us both to do. We're huntin' pelts for a livin' now, an' when the time comes for us to quit it, why, we'll both quit it together, an' so it'll go on. It don't matter wher' it takes us. Say," he went on, turning away abruptly. "Guess I'll jest haul the drinkin' water before I get."
The Padre turned his quiet eyes on the slim back.
"And what about when you think of marrying?" he asked shrewdly.
Buck paused to push the boiler off the stove. He shook his head and pointed at the sky.
"Guess the sun's gettin' up," he said.
The Padre laughed and prepared to depart.
"Where you off to this morning?" he inquired presently.
"That gal ain't got a hired man, yet," Buck explained simply, as he picked up his saddle. Then he added ingenuously, "Y' see I don't guess she ken do the chores, an' the old woman ain't got time to--for talkin'."
The Padre nodded while he bent over the breech of his Winchester. He had no wish for Buck to see the smile his words had conjured.
Buck swung his saddle on to his shoulder and passed out of the hut in the direction of the building he had converted into a barn. And when he had gone the Padre looked after him.
"He says she's handsome, with red-gold hair and blue eyes," he murmured. Then a far-away look stole into his steady eyes, and their stare fixed itself upon the doorway of the barn through which Buck had just vanished. "Curious," he muttered. "They've nicknamed her 'Golden,' which happened to be a nickname--her father gave her."