“To find it first,” said Ned’s father bitterly.
“Nay, it’s already found, parson. The poor old boy found it, and gave the job over to the doctor here, along with those title-deeds.”
“Which don’t say where the land lies.”
“Oh, never mind that. I boggled about it at first, and thought it was a regular blind lead. But I don’t now. Amurrykee isn’t such a big place as all that comes to. There’s the gold somewhere, and we’ve got some sort of a guide as well as the right to it. We’re none of us so old that we can’t afford to spend a few years, if it’s necessary, in hunting through first one desert and then another. Can’t you see what a chance we shall have?”
“I must confess I do not,” said the doctor.
“Well, I do, sir. We shall have those places all to ourselves. There’ll be no one to complain of our making footmarks over their gardens and strawberry-patches.”
“What about the Indians, Mr Griggs?” asked Bourne.
“The Injun? Yes, there’s the Injun, but we shouldn’t go as one. We should be half-a-dozen, and if the ’foresaid Injun takes my advice he’ll stop at home and leave me alone. I ain’t got more pluck in me than most fellows have, but though I called ’Thaniel Griggs all the lazy coons I could lay my tongue to, I’ve a great respect for that young man. Selfish or not, I like him better than any fellow in this country, and I should no more mind drawing a straight bead on the savage who tried to kill him than I should mind putting my heel on a sleeping rattler’s head while I drew my knife and ’capitated him. There, now.”
“Self-preservation’s the first law of nature, friend Griggs,” said Wilton.
“Is it, now?” replied the American. “Then all I can say is that number two and all the rest of her laws have got to be very good ones if they come up to number first, sir. Oh, I shouldn’t stop for no Injuns if I made up my mind to go, sirree. I should chance that, practise up my shooting, and never go a step without having my rifle charged in both barrels.”