"You don't know him, Jim, and you aren't fair to him. No westerner ever is fair to a Chinaman. Phon will stay by the creek. My only fear is that we sha'n't be able to find the creek."
"Not find the crik, you say! Why, Ned Corbett, you ain't no bloomin' tenderfoot in the woods, are you? You ain't likely to forgit your way to the bank when the whole business belongs to you?"
"Perhaps not, but I've been blind for a week;" and then answering the inquiry in Rampike's eyes, Ned lighted his pipe and told the whole story of his own and Steve Chance's wanderings, from the time when they struck Pete's Creek until their return to the Frazer.
Now and again Rampike broke in upon the thread of the narrative with some pertinent question, or a comment as forcible as a kick from a mule, but he managed to keep his pipe going pretty steadily until Ned came to Steve's feat in "blazing." Then the old man's wrath broke out, and his pipe even dropped from his mouth. For a moment he looked at Steve in speechless indignation, and then he expressed himself thus:
"Strike me pink," he said, "ef a real down-easter ain't a bigger born fool in the woods than any bloomin' Britisher I ever heerd tell on. That's so."
After this there was a pause, during which Steve snored peacefully, and old Rampike, having made an exhaustive examination of the bowl of his pipe, proceeded to refill it with chips from his plug of T. & B.
At length Ned began again:
"You've been looking for the creek yourself, haven't you?"
"No. I stayed right here, making wages on that bar there."