"No; that is Tim O'Rooney, a good friend of ours."
"Your humble sarvint!" saluted the Irishman, removing his hat, making a profound bow and scraping a large foot upon the ground.
"Well, there! We're glad to see you. What's all your names?"
They were given several times, and then carefully spelled at the request of the large-whiskered man, who desired that no mistake might be made.
"You may call me Ned Trimble, and that ugly-looking fellow 'tending to the fire is George Wakeman, and that horrid-looking chap scrubbing off his dirty face, is Alfred Wilkins. Neither of them know much, and I brought them along to black my boots and dress my hair."
It looked as though Ned was a sort of a wag, for his companions smiled as if they were used to that thing. He continued:
"We're a party of hunters that have been in Californy for the last five years, and I rather guess I've prospected through every part of it."
"You must be rich by this time."
"Rich!" laughed Ned Trimble. "Well there, we're everything but rich. Somehow or other we hain't had the luck. We sold a claim up in the diggings for five hundred dollars, and the next week the party sold it for fifteen thousand. That's the way it has always gone with us; but we are going to be rich yet—ain't we, boys."
"Yes, if we only live long enough," replied Wakeman.