“What had we to do with it?” said Bourne sharply.
“Everything. I used to see you folk and these boys plodding along, working like niggers, no matter how your crops turned out, and waiting patiently for better times to come.”
“Well, what of that?” said Wilton. “Of course we wanted to get on.”
“So did I, squire, and seeing you all keep at it so when I wanted to chuck up, I pitched into myself and called him—this chap, ’Thaniel Griggs, you know—all the idle, lazy scallywags and loafers I could think of, and made him—’Thaniel, you know—so ashamed of himself that he worked harder than ever. ‘They’ve all cut their eye-teeth, Griggy, my boy,’ I said, ‘and they wouldn’t keep on if there wasn’t some good to come out of it by and by,’ and after that I worked away. But now you all talk of giving up, and say you’ve proved that there’s no good in the place, what’s the use of my niggering away by myself?”
“You’d sooner go on such a wild, harum-scarum search as this, eh?” said the doctor, looking at the tall, sun-burnt man grimly.
“To be sure I would. There’d be some fun and adventure in it.”
“And risk.”
“Well, yes, neighbour; I don’t expect it would be all honey. There’d be some mustard and cayenne in it too.”
“And danger of wasting your life as that poor fellow yonder did his.”
“Some,” said the American coolly. “You can’t make fortunes without a bit of a fight. I came here to this place to make mine, but there’s no stuff here to make it of. If we should find the gold-hills now, that would be something like. The fortune’s already made. All it wants is for us to go and pack it up and bring it away.”