Chapter Seventeen.
A Curious and Valuable Draught—Lynch Law applied—Black Jim’s Confession—Ned becomes a Painter, and finds the Profession Profitable as well as Amusing—The First Portrait.
Next morning the travellers were up and away by daybreak, and in the afternoon they came upon a solitary miner who was prospecting in a gulch near the road-side.
This word gulch is applied to the peculiarly abrupt, short ravines, which are a characteristic feature in Californian more than in any other mountains. The weather was exceedingly hot, and the man took off his cap and wiped his streaming brow as he looked at the travellers who approached him.
“Ha! you’ve got water there, I see,” cried Tom Collins, leaping off his horse, seizing a cup which stood on the ground full of clear water, and draining it eagerly.
“Stop!” cried the man, quickly.
“Why!” inquired Tom, smacking his lips.
The miner took the empty cup and gazed inquiringly into it.
“Humph! you’ve drunk it, every grain.”