Smith roused Mandeville two hours before dawn, and they boiled a quart-pot of tea, for the water would run to no more. They had to husband it. But before they drank Smith spoke to his chum seriously.
"Do you know the odds are against us, Mandy, old boy? I didn't put it right last night. Though it's bad going back, that chance is much the best."
"I'll do what you do," said the Baker obstinately, brushing away a fly. "It's all one to me, old man."
"I'm going on," said Smith, with a curious, hard determination; "and I'll tell you why. I believe in this; I believe I'm going to strike it. I know there's gold out here. Yes, I know it as if I'd seen it, Mandy."
He drank a little tea, and munched a bit of damper.
"I want it, Mandy, bad. There's the devil to pay in England, and no pitch hot. I half-ruined my folks before I was twenty, and I heard last mail that everything was wrong; the old man crazy, and my mother living as she never lived before. And there's another woman in it, too. I'll tell you about it some day."
"But," asked Mandeville, "suppose you go under, Smith?"
"I sha'n't," said Smith; "and if I do, they'll know I'm dead, and can't help 'em. I've been a bad hat, old man, and if I rot in the sun it will serve me right."
Mandeville stopped rolling up his swag.
"You may be what you like, but you're a blooming good pal," said he, "and if you're to corpse it here, I'll corpse it too. You stuck by me when I wanted a friend bad in Albany and at New Find. And that's enough say. If you're in it, I'm on."