"You are so much kindness," he sighed repeatedly.
In the morning they shifted their camp another mile up North Samson to a certain bend near an icy ravine, called Grizzly Gulch, where, Lessari said, a trapper had declared he had found good gold-signs. For three days more they burned out the beach and excavated the frozen gravel without success. The trapper must have been mistaken, or they had struck the wrong spot. They branched out with their operations and covered the dip of the ravine in all directions, but their ill success proved unvarying.
The bed of the gulley lay pock-marked with burned holes, and the dump outside the tent grew large. It was after weeks of this trying toil that Rex Britton discovered Lessari's one vice.
Rex came in one night from a late probing in Grizzly Gulch to find an Indian of the Thron-Diucks keeping company with the Corsican by his camp stove. Both men were joyously drunk, and they hailed Britton as a welcome returned prodigal.
The Thron-Diuck held up an empty bottle which had, no doubt, been dearly bought from some trafficking miner, and lamented the absence of whiskey in woeful Indian jargon. Lessari jumped to his unsteady feet, attempting to embrace Britton and dinning in his ears a hopelessly mixed tale of gold.
"Gold, gold, gold!" he would cry, dancing aside to pat the Indian on the back. "Him tell where gold for give him whiskey."
"Yes, Mis'r," the Thron-Diuck volunteered, ingratiatingly. "Give whiskey! Me tell where big gold come from–heap much gold."
Britton laughed mockingly.
"That tale's too old," he said. "I've heard of the combination of the drunken Indian, the bottle of whiskey, and the golden valley ever since I started on these cursed northern trails. Now, if you want to sleep by our fire, you'll have to stop shouting. I wouldn't turn a dog out upon a night like this, but you must be quiet. Understand?"
He made Lessari sit down, and kicked the Indian's emptied bottle out of the tent.