Guy saw that he had no alternative. Slowly arising from his bunk he picked up his valise, while Bob took his bundle, and together they went their way to the steerage. It looked ten-fold more dingy and forbidding now than it did when Guy first saw it. He did not think he could live there, and told Bob so.
“Nonsense!” said his companion. “You will live in worse places than this before you see the Rocky Mountains. But I’d be a man if I were you, Guy. Choke down your tears.”
“Oh, yes; it’s all well enough for you to talk, for you’ve nothing to trouble you. Your passage is paid and you’ve a nice room to sleep in. But you won’t go to Chicago, will you?”
“Why not?”
“And leave me alone?”
“I don’t see that I can help it. I have paid my passage, and I might as well go on.”
“But, Bob, what shall I do without you?”
“A fellow can’t live in this world without money, Guy, and if I go ashore in the woods how am I going to earn any?”
“How am I going to earn any?” retorted Guy with more pluck and independence than he had yet exhibited. “But I see what you are at very plainly. You want to go back on me.”
“No, I don’t.”