"I'm Breakstone or Bill to those that feed with me," said the new man, "and I'm Mr. Breakstone to those that don't like me or suspect me."
"All right," said Middleton with a laugh, "it's Breakstone for the present. By and by we may call you Bill. I was going to tell you, Breakstone, that we four go in together. We furnish you what you need, and later on you pay us back if you can. It's the usual thing in the West."
"You're right, my lord," said Bill Breakstone, "and I accept. It gives me pleasure to be enrolled in your most gallant company, and, by my troth, I will serve you right well."
Middleton looked at him in amazement, and Bill Breakstone broke into a mellow, infectious laugh.
"I don't talk that way all the time," he said. "It merely bursts out in spots. You may not believe it, when you look at me, but I studied for the stage once, and I've been an actor. Now and then the old scraps come to the end of my tongue. All's well that end's well, and may that be the fate of our expedition."
"Come," said Middleton, after telling his own name and that of his friends to Breakstone, "we'll go to our quarters and make a place for you. Phil and Arenberg are in a room together, and you shall share mine."
"Lead on!" said Bill Breakstone.
The four left the inn. Bill Breakstone was as poor as he described himself to be. He owned only the worn suit of clothes in which he stood, a pistol, and a pair of saddle bags, seeming to contain some linen, of which he took good care.
"Prithee, young sir," he said to Phil, "I would fain guard well the little that I have, because if I lose the little that I have, then what I have shall be nothing. Do I argue well, Sir Ivanhoe?"
"It's conclusive," said Phil. He took greatly to this man who had become in an hour the life of their little band, a constant source of cheerful patter that invigorated them all. Middleton bought him a new suit of clothes, gave him some money, which he promised earnestly to return a hundredfold, and then they went forth to inquire further into the matter of the trading expedition for Santa Fé. But their attention was diverted by the arrival of a large steamboat that had come all the way from Pittsburgh loaded with passengers. A particular group among the arrivals soon became the center of their interest.