“Nor yet me,” said the other.
“Nor me neither,” said the big fellow. “If it’s going to be peace and work, man and man, so much the better; but if it’s war over the gold, we shall have to fight. What’s mine is mine, or ourn; and it’ll go awkward for them as meddles with me. I’m a nasty-tempered dog if any one tries to take my bone away; aren’t I, my sons?”
The two men addressed bent their heads back and burst into a roar of laughter.
“Hark at him,” said the man spoken to as Tommy. “Don’t you believe him, my lads. He’s a great big soft-roed pilchard; that’s what he is. Eh, Dick Humphreys?”
“Yes; like a great big gal,” assented the other.
“Oh, am I?” said the big fellow. “You don’t know, my sons. But I say, though,” he continued, tapping the snow with his knuckles, “then for aught we know them three blacks is buried alive just under where we’re sitting?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“’Fraid? What are you ’fraid on?”
“It is a horrible death,” said Abel, with a shudder.
“Well, yes, I suppose it is,” said the Cornishman thoughtfully. “I say, we ought to get digging to find ’em, oughtn’t we?”