Presently Mr. Allen, the second officer, came up with the two lads.
"I am going ashore in an hour, Preston," he said to Dick; "if you like, you can come with me."
"Thank you, sir; I should like it very much."
"I wish you were coming too, Tom," he went on when the officer moved away. "That is one of the nuisances, Collet never letting us go ashore together."
"It is a nuisance," the other said, heartily. "Of course, Allen is a very good fellow, but one can't have any larks as one could have if we were together."
"Well, there are not many larks to be had here, at any rate, Tom. It is about the dullest place I ever landed at. It is a regular Mexican town, and except that they do have, I suppose, sometimes, dances and that sort of thing, there is really nothing to be done when one does go ashore, and the whole place stinks of hides. Even if one could get away for a day there is no temptation to ride about that desert-looking country, with the sun burning down on one; no one but a salamander could stand it. They are about the roughest-looking lot I ever saw in the town. Everyone has got something to do with hides one way or the other. They have either come in with them from the country, or they pack them in the warehouses, or they ship them. That and mining seem the only two things going on, and the miners, with their red shirts and pistols and knives, look even a rougher lot than the others. I took my pistol when last I went ashore; I will lend it you this evening."
"Oh, I don't want a pistol, Tom; there is no chance of my getting into a row."
"Oh, it is just as well to carry one, Dick, when you know that everyone else has got one about him somewhere, and a considerable number of them are drunk; it is just as well to take one. You know, it is small, and goes in my breast pocket."
"I will take my stick, the one I bought at San Francisco; it has got an ounce of lead in the knob. I would rather have that than a pistol any day."
However, as Dick was standing with the second officer at the top of the gangway, Tom Haldane, as he passed by, slipped the pistol into his hand and then walked on. Dick thrust it into his pocket, and then descended the ladder. It was almost dark now.