“An’ ye tell me, Dick Tarleton, they find these sort o’ nuts in Kaliforny lyin’ right on the surface o’ the groun’?”
“Almost the same. They dig them out of the bed of a river, and then wash the mud off them. The thing’s been just found out by a man named Captain Sutter while they were clearing out a mill-race. The fellow I got these from’s come direct from there with his bullet-pouch chock full of them, besides several pounds weight of dust in a canvas bag. He was in New Orleans to get it changed into dollars; an’ he did it, too, five thousand in all, picked up, he says, in a spell of three months’ washing. He’s going right back.”
“Burn me ef I oughten’t to go too. Huntin’ ain’t much o’ a bizness hyar any longer. Bar’s gettin’ pretty scace, an’ deer’s most run off altogither from the settlements springin’ up too thick. Besides, these young planters an’ the fellers from the towns air allers ’beout wi’ thar blasted horns, scarin’ everything out of creashun. Thar’s a ruck o’ them kine clost by hyar ’beout a hour ago, full tare arter a bar. Burn ’em! What hev they got to do wi’ bar-huntin’—a parcel o’ brats o’ boys? Jess as much as this chile kin do’ to keep his ole karkidge from starvin’; and thar’s the gurl, too, growin’ up, an’ nothin’ provided for her but this ole shanty, an’ the patch o’ gurden groun’. I’d pull up sticks and go wi’ ye, only for one thing.”
“What is that, Rook?”
“Wal, wal; I don’t mind tellin’ you, Dick. The gurl’s good-lookin’, an’ thar’s a rich young feller ’pears a bit sweet on her. I don’t much like him myself; but he air rich, or’s boun’ to be when the old ’un goes under. He’s an only son, an’ they’ve got one o’ the slickest cotton plantations in all Arkansaw.”
“Ah, well; if you think he means marrying your girl, you had, perhaps, better stay where you are.”
“Marryin’ her! Burn him, I’ll take care o’ thet. Poor as I am myself, an’ as you know, Dick Tarleton, no better than I mout be, she hain’t no knowin’ beout that. My little gurl, Lena, air as innocent as a young doe. I’ll take precious care nobody don’t come the humbugging game over her. In coorse you’re gwine to take your young ’un along wi’ ye?”
“Of course.”
“Wal, he’ll be better out o’ hyar, any how. Thar a wild lot, the young fellars ’beout these parts; an’ I don’t think over friendly wi’ him. ’Tall events, he don’t sort wi’ them. They twit him ’beout his Injun blood, and that sort o’ thing.”
“Damn them! he’s got my blood.”