The younger man shrugged his shoulders as he removed his pipe from his mouth and knocked out the ashes of tobacco upon the rough stone hearth.
"Yes, a year, a year," he muttered, "and no hope of return yet. No hope of justice being done to the innocent, and punishment and confusion brought upon the guilty."
"Brown," said his companion, "do you remember our first meeting?"
"Yes, we met in the streets of San Francisco; both penniless, yet both determined to conquer fortune, and to wring from the bowels of our mother earth the gold which should enable us to achieve the purposes of our lives."
"You remember we formed a chance acquaintance, which afterward ripened into friendship."
"It did," answered the other man. "But at the same time we entered into a singular agreement. We resolved that whatever our past history might be, it should remain buried in oblivion, so long as we dwelt together in the wilds of California. We agreed that neither should tell his companion the secrets of his life, or the purpose which he had to accomplish in the future; that even our names should be unknown to each other, and that though living together upon the footing of friends and brothers, we should address each other merely as Brown and Smith."
"Yes, this was our bond."
"We further resolved that we would spend the last dollars we possessed in the purchase of a set of implements, and that we would penetrate into the loneliest tract in the continent, into recesses never visited by the herd of gold-diggers, whose labors exhaust the soil in districts where the precious ore has been found. We determined to search for our prize where none had sought before us, and we resolved to brave every hardship, to endure every peril, for the several ends of our lives."
"We did."
"At San Francisco, we picked up our faithful Sambo yonder," said the man known as Brown, looking to the negro, "and we got a bargain."