Arrived at the house, Mr Rawlings laughingly apologised for its state of dilapidation, but assured the visitor that it was far more comfortable than it looked.
Seth came to the doorway, and the other miners gathered round, to inspect both the welcome supply of fresh food and the stranger.
“This is Seth Allport, my lieutenant and manager,” Mr Rawlings said. “Seth, this is Mr Wilton, an English mining engineer.”
“Jerusalem!” exclaimed Seth. “Now, who would have thought that?”
“You seem surprised at my being an engineer,” said Ernest Wilton, laughing at Seth’s exclamation: for even the hungry miners, who had been previously clustered in groups around Josh and Jasper, surveying the cooking arrangements of the two darkeys with longing eyes, appeared to forget the claims of their appetites for the moment on the announcement of what evidently was a welcome piece of news, as they incontinently abandoned the grateful sight of the frizzling mutton, that was also sending forth the most savoury odours, and joined the leaders of the party who were interviewing the young Englishman. “I shouldn’t have thought one of my profession by any means a strange visitor.”
“It isn’t the surprise, mister,” replied Seth cordially. “No, that ain’t it, quite, I reckon. It’s the coincidence, as it were, at this particular time, mister. That’s what’s the matter! Jehosophat! it is queer, streenger!”
“I’m sure I ought to feel greatly honoured at such an imposing reception,” said Ernest, still rather perplexed at the ovation, which seemed unaccountable to him. “It is not such a very uncommon thing for an engineer to be travelling through these regions, is it now? especially when you consider that it has been mainly through the exertions of men of my craft, and the railways that they have planned, following in their wake, that the country has been opened up at all. I should have thought engineers almost as common nowadays out west as blackberries in old England.”
“You are right there,” said Mr Rawlins’s, hastening to explain the circumstances that had caused his arrival to be looked upon as such a piece of good fortune, quite apart from the friendly feelings with which they regarded him as a forlorn stranger whom they were glad to welcome to their camp. “But, you see, your coming, as Seth Allport has just remarked, has been almost coincident with a loss, or rather want, which we just begin to feel in our mining operations here. Your arrival has happened just in the nick of time, when we are nearly at a standstill through the want of a competent superintending engineer, like yourself, experienced in mines and mining work. Hands we have in plenty—willing and able hands, too,” added Mr Rawlings, with an approving glance round at the assembled miners, who acknowledged the compliment with a hearty cheer for himself and Seth Allport;—“but we want a head to suggest how our efforts can be best directed, and our gear utilised, towards carrying out the object we all have in view. I and Seth have done our best; but, what with the overflow of water in the mine, and the necessity we think there is now for running out side cuttings from the main shaft, so as to strike the lode properly, we were fairly at our wits’ end.”
“I see,” said Ernest Wilton musingly, “I see.”
“An’ if yer like to join us in that air capacity,” interposed Seth, thinking that the other was merely keeping back his decision until he heard what terms might be offered him, and that a practical suggestion about money matters would settle the matter, “why, mister, we sha’n’t grumble about the dollars, you bet! As yer knows, the Kernel kinder invited yer jest now, when we had no sort o’ reckonin’ as to who and what yer were. Tharr’ll be no worry about yer share ov the plunder, neow—no, sir.”