“Ah, you always did take his part. I ain’t going to make friends with strangers.”
“Mr Gunson isn’t a stranger. We’ve known him nearly six months. If you don’t trust him, I do.”
I held out my hand to him as I spoke, and he brought his down in it heavily, giving me such a grip that I had hard work not to wince. “Thank you, my lad,” he said, cheerily. “Then you’re going to pitch me over?” said Esau, surlily.
“I’m going to kick you if you go on in this stupid, suspicious way. Don’t take any notice of him, Mr Gunson.”
“I do not intend to.”
“Oh, come, we can’t go on like that,” cried Esau quickly. “I don’t want to be bad friends. I don’t want to think you mean to rob us. I don’t think— I don’t—”
Esau stopped short, shuffled about from one leg to the other, faltered again in his speech as he tried to say something which would not come, and then in a sharp, short, decisive manner, cried—
“Beg your pardon, Mr Gunson. Couldn’t help thinking what I did.”
“That will do,” said Gunson, holding out his hand, which was eagerly seized by Esau. “I know you couldn’t help it, my lad. Mine is not a face to invite confidence. I’m an ill-looking dog, and I bite hard sometimes; but I never bite my friends, and they are very few. Look here, Mayne Gordon,” he continued, after glancing in Quong’s direction to see if he was within hearing, “I am going up this river on such a mission as needs silence, and you have to keep silence too. First of all, what do you suppose I am?”
I shook my head.