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Book, page 101 / 172 Billy was looking at him steadily. Slowly he rose to his feet, lifted his manacled hands, and turned down the light. "Hurts my eyes," he said, and he laughed frankly as he caught the suspicious glint in Brokaw's eyes. He seated himself again, and leaned over toward the other. "I haven't talked to a white man for three months," he added, a little hesitatingly. "I've been hiding--close. I had a dog for a time, and he died, an' I didn't dare go hunting for another. I knew you fellows were pretty close after me. But I wanted to get enough fur to take me to South America. Had it all planned, an' SHE was going to join me there--with the kid. Understand? If you'd kept away another month--" There was a husky break in his voice, and he coughed to clear it. "You don't mind if I talk, do you--about her, an' the kid? I've got to do it, or bust, or go mad. I've got to because--to-day--she was twenty-four--at ten o'clock in the morning--an' it's our wedding day--" The half gloom hid from Brokaw what was in the other's face. And then Billy laughed almost joyously. "Say, but she's been a true little pardner," he whispered proudly, as there came a lull in the storm. "She was just born for me, an' everything seemed to happen on her birthday, an' that's why I can't be downhearted even NOW. It's her birthday? you see, an' this morning, before you came, I was just that happy that I set a plate for her at the table, an' put her picture and a curl of her hair beside it--set the picture up so it was looking at me--an' we had breakfast together. Look here--" He moved to the table, with Brokaw watching him like a cat, and brought something back with him, wrapped in a soft piece of buckskin. He unfolded the buckskin tenderly, and drew forth a long curl that rippled a dull red and gold in the lamp-glow, and then he handed a photograph to Brokaw. "That's her!" he whispered. Brokaw turned so that the light fell on the picture. A sweet, girlish face smiled at him from out of a wealth of flowing, disheveled curls. "She had it taken that way just for me," explained Billy, with the
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