Chapter Nine.
First Searches for Gold.
The three men uttered a loud cheer, and ran and leaped upon their fallen enemy, but Bart ran back, loading his piece as he went, to where he had left the Doctor with poor Joses.
Bart felt his heart beat heavily, and there was a strange, choking feeling of pain at his throat as he thought of rough, surly-spoken Joses, the man who had been his guide and companion in many a hunt and search for the straying cattle; and now it seemed to him that he was to lose one who he felt had been a friend.
“Is he—”
Bart panted out this much, and then stopped in amazement, for, as he turned the corner of some rocks that lay between him and the tent, instead of addressing the Doctor, he found himself face to face with Joses, who, according to Bart’s ideas, should have been lying upon the stones, hideously clawed from shoulder to heel by the monster’s terrible hooks. On the contrary, the rough fellow was sitting up, with his back close to a great block of stone, his rifle across his knees, and both hands busy rolling up a little cigarette.
“Why, Joses,” panted Bart, “I thought—”
“As I was killed? Well, I ain’t,” said Joses, roughly.