Sprudell saw to it that neither of them got behind him as they moved about the room.
Casting surreptitious glances at the bookshelf, where he looked to see the life of Jesse James, he was astonished and somewhat reassured to discover a title like "Fossil Fishes of the Old Red Sandstone of the British Isles." It was unlikely, he reasoned, that a man who voluntarily read, for instance, "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States," would split his skull when his back was turned. Yet they smacked of affectation to Sprudell, who associated good reading with good clothes.
"These are your books--you read them?" There was skepticism, a covert sneer in Sprudell's tone.
"I'd hardly pack them into a place like this if I didn't," Bruce answered curtly.
"I suppose not," he hastened to admit, and added, patronizingly; "Who is this fellow Agassiz?"
Bruce turned as sharply as if he had attacked a personal friend. The famous, many-sided scientist was his hero, occupying a pedestal that no other celebrity approached. Sprudell had touched him on a tender spot.
"That 'fellow Agassiz,'" he answered in cold mimicry, "was one of the greatest men who ever lived. Where do you stop when you're home that you never heard of Alexander Agassiz? I'd rather have been Alexander Agassiz than the richest man in America--than any king. He was a great scientist, a great mining engineer, a successful business man. He developed and put the Calumet and Hecla on a paying basis. He made the University Museum in Cambridge what it is. He knew more about sea urchins and coral reefs than men who specialize, and they were only side issues with him. I met him once when I was a kid, in Old Mexico; he talked to me a little, and it was the honor of my life. I'd rather walk behind and pack his suitcase like a porter than ride with the president of the road!"
"Is that so?" Sprudell murmured, temporarily abashed.
"Great cats!" ejaculated Uncle Bill, with bulging eyes. "My head would git a hot-box if I knowed jest half of that."
When Sprudell stretched his stiff muscles and turned his head upon the bear-grass pillow at daybreak, Bruce was writing a letter on the corner of the table and Uncle Bill was stowing away provisions in a small canvas sack. He gathered, from the signs of preparation, that the miner was going to try and find the Chinaman. Outside, the wind was still sweeping the stinging snow before it like powder-driven shot. What a fool he was to attempt it--to risk his life--and for what?