"What's your opinion, Dick?"
The English ex-convict shook his head sulkily.
"It's a beast of a country," he grumbled. "There's more snow falls in an hour here than would fill St. James' Park for a week! It will be almost a treat to be a roast at a redskin's torture fire."
"I concur," added Lottery Paul, laughing. "All right, Quarryman, we are two of a pair, and I'll stick to you when you say we must claw out of this trap."
"What's the use of this bullying bounce?" cried the captain, "We are all in the same box, aren't we?"
"I don't know so much about that. Paul and me are new to this wild tramping business, and never came to such passes as these deuced mountain passes before. The Californian Sierra is molehills to it!"
"In short," took up the Frenchman, "we believe your gold mine is a fraud. Your course so far tends to take us over the Rockies, where many a better man has left his bones, and though a solid chunk of gold as big as a house awaits me yonder, I have my reasons not to go over to the Pacific coast."
"Same here," subjoined the English felon, scowling.
"What I go on to say is, every step forward means harder fare—the tracts you assured us were desolate are growing Injins, your gold mine does not show up, and so, give us a couple of hundred dollars apiece for having escorted you so far, and we'll march off on our own hooks."
"That's my say, too," coincided Dick, delighted with the Parisian's eloquence.