"I am afraid you haven't hit on a very good spot," he said. "I don't know much about it myself, for I have only been here about a month; but I hear every one say that there have been several trials made here, and that none of them have found anything to speak of."
"We must work where we can," the man said. "The places were pretty well all taken up when we came, and it didn't suit us to go further."
"Well," said Frank, "I don't want to be inquisitive, mate, or to interfere in other people's affairs, but I noticed your mate looked an elderly man, and that you seemed pretty much alone. I am only just out here myself, and I and the party I am working with are doing fairly; so I thought it would be only neighbourly to come over and see if I could be of use in any way."
"No, thank you," the man repeated; "there's nothing we want."
Frank saw that at present he could do nothing; but he had little doubt that the two men were really suffering severely. Still he understood and respected their pride, and with a friendly "Good evening," strolled off to his own hut.
The next evening he again went round to the solitary workman.
"How is your mate?" he asked.
The man shook his head. "He's pretty bad."
The tone was softer and less repellent than that which he had used the evening before. He was a young man of not more than three or four and twenty, and Frank saw that his lip quivered as he turned away from him and dug his shovel into the ground.
"If your mate is worse," Frank said, "you have no right to refuse my offer. I cannot help feeling that you are doing badly; in that case, why should you not let me lend you a hand? There's no disgrace in being unlucky. Here men are unlucky one week, and make a rich strike on the week following, and then they can lend a hand to others, just as a hand may have been lent to them when they wanted it. I think by your accent that you are an Englishman, and an educated one, just as I am myself. Why on earth don't you let me be a friend to you?"