"How is that, Tim?"
"Begorrah, but he shpakes the truth. I wint up among the mountains to hunt gowld."
"And what luck had you?"
"Luck, is it?" repeated the Irishman, with an expression of ludicrous disgust. "Luck, does ye call it, to have your head cracked and your shins smashed by the copper-skins, chawed up by the b'ars, froze to death in the mountains, drowned in the rivers—that run into the top of yer shanty when yer sound asleep—your feet gnawed off by wolverines, as they call—and—but whisht! don't talk to me of luck, and all the time ye never gets a sight of a particle of gowld."
The boys laughed, Howard said:
"But your luck is not every one's, Tim; there have been plenty who have made fortunes at the business."
"Yis, but they wasn't Tim O'Rooneys. He's not the man that was born to be rich!"
"You're better satisfied where you are."
"Yis, thank God, that I've such a good home, and an ongrateful dog would I baa if I should ask more."
"But, Elwood, it's getting late, and this night air begins to feel chilly. It can't be far from midnight."