Presently Corbett knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it away carefully in his pocket.
"Do you work in the night-shift on your place?" he asked Rampike.
"Either me or my partner is there all the while."
"Shall you be there to-night?"
"I'll be going on at midnight, but I'll fix up a pack with some grub in it for you before I go."
"Thank you, I'll leave that to you, if I may. Will you call me before you go? I mean to try to get all the sleep I can before the moon is up."
"Well, lie down right now. I'll call you, you bet. You're a good sort for a Britisher—give us a shake;" and Rampike held out a hand as hard and as honest as the pick-handle to which it clung day after day.
Perhaps it was the thought of his old friend's danger which made Rampike blind and careless, or perhaps it was only his natural clumsiness. In any case he steered very badly for his own door, so badly indeed that he tripped over Chance's prostrate form, dealing him a kick that might have roused a dead man. But Steve only turned over restlessly in his sleep, like one who dreams, and then lay as still again as ever.
Ned smiled. "No danger of waking him, I think, when I want to go. Poor old Steve! the loss of the money does not seem to spoil your sleep much."
Five minutes later, when Rampike had gone out to get together the provisions which his guest needed, anyone listening to that guest's regular breathing would have been of opinion that the loss of the dollars troubled Ned Corbett as little as it troubled Steve Chance.