"How about packing? You cain't throw a diamond hitch by instinct," remarked Chance, who knew a little from hearsay of the life of the road.
"Oh, I can throw the hitch, and so I guess can your heathen, and we'll deuced soon teach both of you to take the on-side if you are wanted to."
"How much would such a train cost?"
"The ponies ought not to cost more than fifty dollars apiece; as to the stores, of course it depends upon what you choose to take. The ponies will carry about two hundred pounds apiece, if they are good ones."
"What do you say to it, Steve?" asked Ned.
"Seems a good business," replied Chance, "and we may as well put our last dollars into a pack-train as leave them in the bank or chuck them into the Frazer. A pack-train goes."
And so it was settled that the two friends should invest the balance of their funds in a pack-train and stores for Cariboo. The venture looked a promising one, with no possibility of failure or loss, and even if things went wrong the boys would only be stone-broke; and who cares whether he is stone-broke or not at twenty-three, in a new country with no one dependent upon him?
It was only eighteen months before that Edward Corbett had left home, a home in which it was part of the duty of about five different human beings to see that Master Edward wanted for nothing. At about the same time one of the finest houses in New York would have been disturbed to its very foundations if it were suspected that Mr. Steve Chance wanted for any of the luxuries of the nineteenth century, and yet here were Steve Chance and Ned Corbett, their last dollar invested in a doubtful venture, their razors abandoned, their toilet necessaries reduced to one cake of soap and a towel between two (Cruickshank condemned the habit of washing altogether upon the road), and their whole stock of household goods reduced to two light packs, to be carried mile after mile upon their own strong shoulders. There was daily labour ahead of them such as a criminal would hardly have earned for punishment at home, there was a certainty before them of bad food, restless nights, thirst, hunger, and utter discomfort, and yet this life was of their own choosing, and a smile hovered round the lips of each of them as the pipes dropped out of their mouths and they turned over to sleep.
As for "gold," the prize which both of them appeared to be making all these sacrifices for, neither of the boys, oddly enough, had thought of it that night. With Phon it was different, but then he was a celestial. He played for the stakes. Both the whites played, though in different ways, for the fun of the game.