"You call it a moment, Harry. Why, we have been here an hour."
"By Jove! Dick, you're a wonderful fellow," the other continued with a laugh. "Do you think that business can be settled all in a moment?"
"After all, what is our game? For may the old one twist my neck, or a grizzly give me a hug, if I know the least in the world! For five years we have hunted and slept side by side. We have come from Canada together to this place. I have grown into a habit—I cannot say why—of referring to you everything that concerns our mutual interests. Still I should not be sorry to know, if only for the rarity of the fact, why on earth we left the prairies, where we were so well off, to come here, where we are so badly off."
"Have you ever repented, up to today, the confidence you placed in me?"
"I do not say so, Harry. Heaven forbid! Still I think—"
"You think wrong," the young man sharply interrupted. "Let me alone, and before three months you shall have three times your hat full of massive gold, or call me a fool."
At this dazzling promise the eyes of Dick, the smaller of the hunters, glistened like two stars. He regarded his comrade with a species of admiration.
"Oh, oh!" he said in a low voice, "It is a placer, is it?"
"Hang it!" the other said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "were it not, should I be here? But silence, our man has arrived."
In fact, a man entered at this moment. On his appearance a sudden silence fell on the mesón; the adventurers gambling and cursing at all the tables, rose as if moved by a spring, respectfully took off their plumed hats, and ranged themselves with downcast eyes to let him pass. The man remained for an instant on the threshold of the venta, took a profound glance at the company, and then walked toward the two hunters.