“Oh, yes,” said the doctor, sitting down after replenishing the fire. “Did you have a rough passage back?”
“I don’t know—I know nothing but that those fiends were after me to get it, and I knew that they would kill me if they could only get a chance. A heated hare sees nothing but the hounds.”
“No, of course not,” said the doctor, speaking softly to keep his patient’s attention, but watching him intently the while, to see the effect of his medicine. “Let’s see, you have been away four years.”
“Yes, four years,” said Mark, speaking more calmly now. “Lost every penny, farming, doctor. No good.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“Then I tried—wagon-driving, and made a respectable living—doing regular carter’s work till I had a team and wagon of my own; but I went one bad time—right across the desert, and found myself at last—seated on the last bullock of my team of twenty—by the wreck of my wagon—doctor dying—for want of water.”
“Ah! that was bad.”
“Yes, but I was picked up by a party who came in the nick of time. They were going by across journey to the diamond-fields.”
“Ah! you went there?”
“Yes, I went there,” said the young man drowsily, and speaking in a restful manner and with many pauses. “Rough life, and for six months—no good. Then luck turned. I went on. At last found—self rich man. Rather absurd, doctor—handful of stones—stones, crystals—handful in a leather bag. Soon nothing. I often laughed. Seemed so much trash, but the right thing. Very large some of them, and I worked on—digging—and picking. Knew I was a wealthy man.”