"I certainly come from that mine," said Brooke, and the girl turned to one of her companions.
"You wouldn't believe he was the man," she said.
Brooke was not altogether unaccustomed to the directness of the West, but he felt a trifle embarrassed when two pairs of eyes were fixed upon him in what seemed to be an appreciative scrutiny.
"One would almost fancy that you had heard of me," he said.
The girl laughed. "Well," she said, "most of the folks in this province who read newspapers have. There was a column about you and your sick partner and the doctor. You carried him across the range when he was too played out to walk, didn't you?"
"No," said Brooke, a trifle astonished. "I certainly did not. He was a good deal too heavy, as a matter of fact, and I was not very fit to drag myself. But when did this quite unwarranted narrative come out, and what shape did it take?"
They told him as nearly as they could remember, and added running comments and questions both at once.
"You had almost nothing to eat for a week when you started across the range to bring the doctor out. That must have been horrid—and what did it feel like?" said one.
Brooke shook his head. "I really don't know," he said. "I should recommend you to try it."
"And then the poor man was dead when you got there—I 'most cried over him. There was a good deal about it. It must have been creepy coming upon him lying in the dark."