“I reckon I will,” said the Pike man, getting off his beast. “You don’t happen to have a bottle of whisky with you, strangers?”
“No,” said Joe.
The newcomer looked disappointed.
“I wish you had,” said he. “I feel as dry as a tinder-box. Where might you be travelin’?”
“We are bound for the mines on the Yuba River.”
“That’s a long way off.”
“Yes, it’s four or five days’ ride.”
“I’ve been there, and I don’t like it. It’s too hard work for a gentleman.”
This was uttered in such a magnificent tone of disdain that Joe was rather amused at the fellow. In his red shirt and coarse breeches, and brown, not overclean skin, he certainly didn’t look much like a gentleman in the conventional sense of that term.
“It’s all well enough to be a gentleman if you’ve got money to fall back on,” remarked Joshua sensibly.