"Shut up, Ted!" Bill would suddenly cry, pausing in the middle of his narrative. "Is it you that's tellin' this yarn or me?"
At these rough words the silent one would slowly turn a reproachful glance upon the speaker which said as plainly as words, "Why, Bill, I did not speak."
"I knows that," would come the unhesitating answer, "but your face does, an' it's been an' got to the end of this story afore me."
This was in a manner true, and sometimes when Bill, as Hoskins the American said, was "long-winded in getting to the point," we had but to look at Ted's face for the dénoûement.
"But how vas it you came away unt leave all dat opal? There must be millions there," our German friend would say when Bill's narrative was concluded.
"I reckon there is, Kaiser," the raconteur would answer, "but the country is full o' darned crows an' willy-willys, an' ye can't sleep no how with the sand-flies an' snakes an' 'skeeturs. Water, did ye say? No, there ain't none."
However much Ted and Bill may have ignored the absence of the precious fluid, that was the only consideration with most of their listeners, and had there been any water, some of us, at least, would have gone out West at once and chanced everything else.
One evening Bill was unusually eloquent in his discourse on the lavishness with which Nature had gifted the desert, and as all our claims had been yielding but poor returns for the last week or so, we paid more attention to his words than we had been in the habit of doing.
"I wouldn't mind having a try out back," said Scottie, "if there were a railway, or if we had fleein' machines."
"Couldn't we go as we are?" lisped the Parson, "we may work here for ever, and not better ourselves."