Then his attention was attracted by the figure of a man, at once strange and familiar, coming toward him with a dragging gait. Jason studied the other until a sudden recognition clouded his countenance, filled him with a swift, unpleasant surprise.
“Thomas!” he exclaimed. “Whenever did you get back?”
“Yesterday,” said Thomas Gast.
Well, here was Thomas returned from California like himself. Yet the most negligent view of the latter revealed that there was a vast difference between Jason and this last Argonaut—Thomas Gast's loosely hung jaw, which gave to his countenance an air of irresolution, was now exaggerated by an aspect of utter defeat. His ill conditioned clothes, sodden brogans, and stringy handkerchief still knotted miner-fashion about his throat, all multiplied the fact of failure proclaimed by his attitude.
“How did you strike it?” Jason uselessly asked.
“What chance has the prospector today?” the other heatedly and indirectly demanded. “At first a man could pan out something for himself; but now it's all companies, all capital. The state's interfered too, claims are being held up in court while their owners might starve; there are new laws and trimmings every week. I struck it rich on the Reys, but I was drove out before I could get my stakes in. They tell me you did good.”
“At last,” Jason replied.
“And married Honora Canderay, too.”
The other assented shortly.
“Some are shot with luck,” Thomas Gast proclaimed; “they'd fall and skin their face on a nugget.”