"Quite so; but we don't want to buy any."
"Wal, it ain't much for them as has the means and wants to 'go in.'"
I am afraid that, to use a miner's expression, we did not "pan out" as well as was anticipated. A little diplomacy eventually secured us the services of a Mormon freighter named Andrews, his boy, a waggon, and twelve mules and horses, upon reasonable terms. We engaged a cook, and with Dick (the guide we had brought from Ogden) the "outfit" was complete.
Dick was an old soldier, and a first-rate fellow. True, the Dillon whisky proved too much for him when we were starting, but ordinary poison had been a mild beverage by comparison with it, and we were so glad that it did not kill him outright that we excused his temporary indisposition. Besides, even beneath its influence he displayed the most charming urbanity, and the greatest anxiety to get under way.
"All I wants, Mr. Francis, is to make a start, to get away—beyond the pale of civilisation, as you may say—beyond (hic) the pale," he repeats meditatively.
"Beyond the pail or the cask, Dick?"
"Beyond the pale," replies he dubiously, after a thoughtful pause.
Dick was hearty in his endeavours to engage an "outfit."
"Say! you! look here, now!" he would explain to a native; "these here men don't want none of your —— —— snide outfits, but jest good bronchos, and a waggon, and strong harness."
"Wal, can't yer find no waggons?"