'If yer were sartin of findin' all the gold yor want, would yer go back to Califony?''
'Arrah. Now, what are yees talkin' about?' asked McSquizzle, somewhat impatiently. 'What is the good of talkin'?'
'I didn't ax yer to fool with yer,' replied the trapper, 'thar's a place that I know away out West, that I call Wolf Ravine, whar thar's enough gold to make both of yer richer than yer ever war afore, and then leave some for yer children.'
'Jerusalem! but you're a lucky dog!' exclaimed Ethan Hopkins, not daring to hope that he would reveal the place. 'Why don't you dig it up naow, yourself?'
'I only found it a month ago, and I made a purty good haul of it, as it was. When that old boss of mine went down with the steamer, he carried a powerful heft of gold with him, and if anybody finds his carcass, it'll be the most vallyable one they ever come across.'
'Jingo! if I'd know'd that, I'd taken a hunt for him myself.'
'Howsumever, that's neither yar nor thar. You both done me a good turn when I got into trouble on the river, and I mud' up my mind to do what I could toward payin' it back the first chance I got. I didn't say nothin' of it when we was on our way, 'cause I was afeard it would make you too crazy to go back ag'in: but if you'll come back this way next spring I'll make the trip with you.'
'Why not go naow?' eagerly inquired Hopkins.
'It's too late in the season. I don't want to be thar when thar's too much snow onto the ground, and then I must stay yar till I git well over that whack I got on the boat.'
It is hardly necessary to say that the offer of the kind-hearted trapper was accepted with the utmost enthusiasm. Mickey and Ethan were more anxious to go out upon the prairies than they had been a year and a half before, when they started so full of fife and hope for that vast wilderness, and had come back with such discouragement and disgust.