"And is the colonel his brother?"
"Some say he is, some say he isn't. But I never knew him regularly on the gambling racket before, though he won a pile of money up at Williams Creek last fall.
"Then you have been in Cariboo," Corbett remarked.
"In Cariboo? Rather! I was there when Williams Creek was found, and for all that had to sing my way out with a splinter in my hand, and not a nickel in my pocket."
"How do you mean 'sing your way out?'"
"I mean just what I say. My hand went back on me and swelled, so that I couldn't work, and I just had to sing for my grub as I went along. Old Rampike had a fiddle and used to play, and I used to make up the songs and sing 'em. Perhaps you've heard the 'Old pack mule.' It's a great favourite at the mines:
"Ted staked and lost the usual way,
But his loss he took quite cōōl;
He was near the mines, and he'd start next day
Riding on his old pack mūle."