“That’ll do, Joe. You’ve got some strength in your fingers. I guess it’s true, after all.”
Joe observed with some surprise that Hogan did not come near them. The rest, without exception, had congratulated them on their extraordinary good luck.
“Seems to me Hogan looks rather down in the mouth,” said Joe to Bickford.
“He’s mad ’cause he didn’t find the nugget. That’s what’s the matter with him. I say, Hogan, you look as if your dinner didn’t agree with you.”
“My luck don’t agree with me.”
“You don’t seem to look at things right. Wasn’t you lucky the other day to get away from the bear?”
“I was unlucky enough to fall in with him.”
“Wasn’t you lucky in meetin’ my friend Joe in New York, and raisin’ money enough out of him to pay your passage out to Californy?”
“I should be better off in New York. I am dead broke.”
“You’d be dead broke in New York. Such fellers as you always is dead broke.”