"You treated me like a white man," Turner answered with a trace of awkwardness, and then broke into a grin. "Besides, I was getting tired of the business, anyhow; there wasn't a dollar in it for me. Now I guess I'll light out before somebody comes along."
Andrew thanked him, and then went off in search of Carnally, feeling glad that he had treated Turner leniently. The man was a rogue, but he had the virtue of gratitude.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE JUMPERS
The sun was rising when Joe Thorpe made a hasty breakfast with his two companions in their camp beside the lode. He was a logger by profession, though he had an extensive experience in prospecting for timber-rights and minerals. Big Joe was known as an honest man; that was why Frobisher had selected him to stake off a claim, and he had arrived late on the previous night after a forced march.
"We ought to have a clear day or two before the first of the crowd that's following us comes in, but that's all," he said. "We want to get our prospecting done and the best locations picked before the rush begins, and we'll start as soon as you've finished."
"I'll be through in a minute," said one of the others with his mouth full. "It's a pretty fair deal Frobisher made with us and he's not the man to go back on one."
"That's more than I'd say of Mappin," remarked the third of the party. "He's in this somehow, isn't he? What was it Carnally said to you when we were getting ready to start, Joe?"
"Told me to watch out for the Mappin crowd. It seems Mappin's put Scaith, who made the trouble over the Newark timber-rights, on to the job. The fellow's a crook, and two of the others have been mixed up in jumping rows. Now we like Carnally, and he allowed he was on to a good thing in the Allinson claims. Anyhow, Watkins, you've had enough for one man. Let up on the pork and bring along the drill."
They set to work, and it was late in the afternoon when, stripped to shirt and trousers and dripping with perspiration, Joe stopped for a few moments to look about. Thirty feet behind him the creek swirled furiously around a rocky head, the steep face of which was fumed and scarred by giant-powder. A stake was driven into the crest of the promontory, another could be seen a short distance back, and straggling jack-pines and spruces followed the edge of the bank. The ground had been disturbed all round and was strewn with piles of soil and stones.