“Because we won’t stay to keep you company,” answered Watty Wilkins, “and surely you wouldn’t have the heart to remain here digging holes by yourself? Besides, my friend Ben is bound to go home. The work is evidently too hard for him, and he’s so fond of gold that he won’t give up digging.”
“Ah! Watty,” returned Ben with a sad smile, “you know it is not my fondness for gold that makes me dig. But I can’t bear to be a burden on you, and you know well enough that what I do accomplish does little more than enable me to pay my expenses. Besides, a little digging does me good. It occupies my mind and exercises my muscles, an’ prevents moping. Doesn’t it, Polly?”
In this estimate of his case Ben Trench was wrong. The labour which he undertook and the exposure to damp, despite the remonstrances of his companions, were too much for a constitution already weakened by disease. It was plain to every one—even to himself—that a change was necessary. He therefore gladly agreed to the captain’s proposal.
Baldwin Burr, however, dissented. He did not, indeed, object to the dissolution of the partnership of Samson and Company, but he refused to quit the gold-fields, saying that he had no one in the Old Country whom he cared for, and that he meant to settle in California.
It was finally agreed that the captain, Philosopher Jack, Watty Wilkins, Ben Trench, Simon O’Rook, and Polly should return home, while Baldwin Burr and Jacob Buckley should enter into a new partnership and remain at the fields.
Although, as we have said, most of our adventurers had sent their gold home in the form of bills of exchange for investment, they all had goodly sums on hand in dust and nuggets—the result of their more recent labours—for which strong boxes were made at Higgins’s store. Simon O’Rook, in particular,—who, as we have said, did not send home any of his gold,—had made such a huge “pile” that several strong boxes were required to hold all his wealth. The packing of these treasure-chests occupied but a short time. Each man cut his name on the lid of his box inside, and printed it outside, and nailed and roped it tight, and took every means to make it secure. Then, mounting their mules and travelling in company with a trader and a considerable party of miners, they returned to San Francisco, having previously secured berths in a ship which was about to sail for England via Cape Horn.
Baldwin Burr and Buckley convoyed them a day’s journey on the way.
“I’m sorry you’re goin’, Miss Polly,” said Baldwin, riding up alongside of our little heroine, who ambled along on a glossy black mule.
“I am not sorry that we’re going,” replied Polly, “but I’m sorry—very sorry—that we are leaving you behind us, Baldwin. You’re such a dear old goose, and I’m so fond of teaching you. I don’t know how I shall be able to get on without you.”
“Yes, that’s it, Miss Polly,” returned the bluff seaman, with a look of perplexity. “You’re so cram full of knowledge, an’ I’m sitch an empty cask, that it’s bin quite a pleasure to let you run over into me, so to speak.”