"What do you propose, Ned? Fix things your own way. I am sick of dry bread and sugarless tea, anyway."
Corbett laughed. He thought to himself that had he been as keen after the gold as Steve had been, he would hardly have remembered that the tea had no sugar in it. Phon, to his mind, was a much better stamp of gold-seeker than his volatile Yankee friend.
"All right! If you leave it to me, I propose that we go down to the Frazer, following the Chilcotin to its mouth, and prospecting the sources of all these little streams as we go. You see, so far we have only been low down near the bed of the Chilcotin. What I propose to do now, is to keep along the divide where the streams rise. At any rate we shall see more game up there than down here."
"Nawitka and hyas sloosh, as the siwashes say. Any blessed thing you please, Ned, only let us get out of this before we starve. What do you say, Phon?"
"Very good, not go yet," replied the Chinaman. "S'pose not find gold down low, find him high up."
"Phon sticks to his guns better than you do, Steve," remarked Corbett.
"I daresay. A herring-gutted Chinaman may be able to live on air. I cain't."
But the morrow brought Phon the reward of his faith, and twenty-four hours from the time when Steve Chance had asked only to be allowed to "get out of the confounded country by the shortest road," he would not have left it for ten thousand dollars.
This was how it happened.
About mid-day, the sun being unusually hot, a halt had been called to smoke the mid-day pipe and rest legs wearied with the steep climb from the river bed to the crest of the divide.