"I'm not so humble as to put myself in the way of being walked over," was the haughty reply.
"Oh—oh, jest as I 'spected. I ain't a ladies' man—that is, not lately," said the little guide, running his fingers through his short hair as if moved by ancient reminiscences, "but I allers thought it didn't disgrace a feller if a purty woman did put her foot on his neck. How in thunder do you expeck to know for sartain whether she likes you or not, if you're too mean to ask her. P'raps you want her to do the courtin'! Mighty generous you be, ain't you. All I can say is, if you let her go off without findin' out precisely her sentiments, you deserve to lose her—and ought to be thrashed besides for breaking her purty heart, Nat Wolfe!"
"Breaking her heart!" echoed Nat, in a softer voice, his eyes bent wistfully upon the blue smoke wreathing the distant settlement. "There's no danger of that—her heart's already mended, and stuffed full of silk dresses and diamonds, young men and flattery, elegant houses and rich friends."
"A woman wouldn't be a woman, if she didn't have a hankerin' after silk and satin and other fixin's—specially if she's young and handsome. I don't see any thing to prevent your supplyin' her with a fair share of sech—particularly if we're lucky in findin' what we're after on this tramp. As for that pesky father of hers, he'd no business poking along here jest at this time—though he's a perfect gentleman, and we hain't no reason to hate him as I knows on. 'Lizabeth's known you as long as she has him—and unless Buckskin Joe misses his guess more'n usual, she thinks a good deal more of the youngest one of the two. I should like to know if you think it's fair not to give her a chance to speak for herself?"
Nat smiled, rather sadly however, at the indignant, remonstrating tone of the guide; he felt cheered by his words, though, and brightened visibly, as he put away the remainder of his dinner in his wallet, and sprung to his feet, saying:
"Come on, then, my friend. Let's try for the gold, first, seeing we've come this far in search of it."
For a while they strode along in silence. The bracing air was fragrant with resinous odors, the dead tassels of the pines made a soft carpet under their feet; with rifles ready loaded to repel any wild animal who might see fit to resent their intrusion into his solitudes, eager, athletic, accustomed to the forest, they pressed onward with as little hesitation as if following some well-known highway.
It was a wild and glittering hope which danced before these sober men, leading them into the depths of mountain solitudes, hitherto trodden by white men seldom or never. Gold, the all-fascinating siren, allured them. Their hearts bounded, their pulses beat to the music of that whisper; the winds breathed it through the tall pines murmuring above them; the sunlight sparkled only to remind them of its glitter. Fond master-passion of the universal heart! the love of gold, dearer even than the love of woman, for it holds the key to that love, and to every other earthly delight.
The little, quaint, withered guide was enough of a philosopher to pause all of a sudden in their journey, and say, with that peculiar quirk of the mouth:
"What in creation am I chasing off here after a gold mine for? S'posin' I should stumble on a few hundred thousands or millions, what on airth would I do with my share? When I've plenty of tobaccy in my box, meat in my wallet and powder in my flask, I'm happy. I couldn't live without trampin' and huntin'. Yit here I am as crazy as the rest of 'em. Fact is, we're all a set of fools.