"Stop and take a smoke," said Andrew, handing him his tobacco pouch. "I don't feel very fresh, but I could carry those blankets. Let me have them."
"I'll have to do that or leave them. It was a tough march I made with nothing to eat." He filled his pipe before he resumed: "There's no meanness in you."
"Never mind that. What was Mappin to give you for this job?"
"Three dollars a day while I was out on it. Four hundred dollars when I'd staked the claim, if the specimens assayed right."
"But how could he tell whether you would do the square thing by him?"
Turner grinned.
"It wouldn't be safe to do anything else. Supposing I'd gone round, looking for another buyer, he'd have had me doped or sandbagged before I'd made the sale. You can't fool Mappin. You have to put your job through when you deal with him."
"It seems to me that you haven't made a success of this particular business," Andrew remarked.
"I certainly haven't," the other admitted with a rueful air. "Your partner has me fixed—he's a smart man. There'll be no three dollars a day for mine when I go home."
"You have struck bad luck," said Andrew with a smile. "I'm not sure you don't deserve it, but that's another matter. And now give me the blankets: we'll take the things along."