"For you will have to be store-keeper as well as ration-carrier whilst I am away, besides being protector-in-chief to mother and Margaret. I wish you were coming, too, Yess, but I don't think you could stand camping out just yet," said George.
"No," replied Yesslett; "perhaps I could not, and besides that," he added, with an assumption of a manly manner that delighted and amused George, though he was little more than a year older than his cousin—"besides that, I shall have to look after the women."
"Yes, of course," said George, with a little smile.
"I say, Geordie," said Yesslett, in his natural, boyish, inquisitive way a few moments afterwards, during which time George had been getting ready the stores to take with them on their expedition, "whatever do you want all those canvas bags for?"
"Oh, they'll come in useful," said George, who did not mean to tell his chatterbox of a cousin that he hoped they would be useful for bringing home the gold they were going to seek. He half blushed at thus counting his chickens before they were hatched, but with a little laugh he went on choosing the strongest sewn ones from a little heap of 14-lb. shot bags that lay in a corner of the store near the door.
Yesslett understood that he would get no further answer from George, so he remained behind the tall salt-meat cask, silently folding up the great flour bag they had just emptied.
The same idea seemed to strike some one else, for a moment afterwards Keggs, who had already made one or two excuses for coming into the store that morning, appeared again at the door, and looking in, with what he considered an engaging smile, he entered, and said—
"You seem mighty busy this morning!"
"Yes," said George, shortly, for he did not like the man, and Alec had told him how he had been watching him the night before.
"And wot might y'all be ser busy for?"