Part 64 (1/2)

”No, sir.”

”And have you any capital to buy land, and stock it?”

”Only a few pounds left, sir.”

”Oh, you have a few pounds. Well, yours seems a lively position, and I suppose you both see that you have very little chance of getting on.”

”Oh, I don't know, sir,” said Esau. ”We've seen lots of places where we could build a hut to begin with, and get on by degrees.”

”Your eyes want opening a little wider, my lad. Suppose you took up one of the beautiful patches of land you saw near the river.”

”Yes, sir, quite close, where we could catch salmon same as the Indians do, and dry them. I don't see if the Indians can live why we couldn't.”

”For the simple reason that you are not Indians--savages, my lad. Do you know that if you did as you propose, some night you would have to climb for your life, and cling in the branches of a huge pine, while the flooded river swept away your hut.”

”Don't sweep away your huts,” said Esau, sulkily.

”Because they are two hundred feet above the river. Well, what are you going to do?”

”Start back again, sir, at once,” I replied.

”And then?”

”Try to get work somewhere.”

”And what am I to say to my sister and her husband when they come?”

”That we found out we had made a mistake, sir, and had set to work at once to try and remedy it.”

”You will sleep here to-night though, of course?”

I looked at Esau, and his eyes flashed back my opinion.

”No sir,” I said. ”We thank you for what you have done, but we shall start back directly, and sleep where we made our camp in the middle of the day.”

”Don't be hasty, my lad,” said our host. ”It's wise sometimes to sleep on a determination.”

”It can't be here, sir,” I said bitterly, ”so goodbye, and thank you.

Come, Esau, we can get on for a couple of hours before it is quite dark.”

”All right,” said Esau, st.u.r.dily; ”and we can find our way back if we didn't know it coming.”

”Well, perhaps you are right,” said Mr Raydon; ”but of course you understand that you are going back alone. Mr Gunson will be on his way into the mountains, and I dare say that China boy will follow him.”

”I suppose he will, sir,” I said. ”Better sleep on it, my lad.”

”No, sir,” I said, firmly. ”I would rather not.”

”Too proud to accept the hospitality of the man who has told you such home-truths?”