“Your fee, sir?” asked Johnny very formally, for the doctor’s brusque manner had rubbed.
“One ounce,” stated Dr. Rankin. “I shall direct the woman, and I shall return one week from to-day unless conditions change. In that case, summon me.”
He pouched the gold dust that Johnny shook into the palm of his hand at a guess, bowed formally to each of us in turn, picked up his bag and departed, rigidly erect, the fine red dust crawling and eddying at his feet.
Then we held a council of war, all of us. Don Gaspar 262 announced his intention of returning to his rancho in the south.
“I have found the gold, and I have made fren’s, and I have now enough,” said he.
Bagsby, too, said he thought he would just ride down as far as Sutter’s Fort, there to lay in a supply of powder and ball for a trip in the mountains.
“I kind of want to git up another b’ar fight,” said he. “If I thought there was a ghost of a show to git them robbers for you boys, I’d stay and help you scout for them; but there ain’t a show in the world. They’ve had a good three days’ start.”
After shaking hands with us again and again, and obtaining promises that we should all surely meet in San Francisco or Monterey, they mounted and took their departure in order to get well clear of the settlement before nightfall.
When they had gone Yank opened his eyes from the apparent sleep into which he had fallen.
“You fellows don’t hang around here with me, I can tell you that,” he stated. “I’m fixed all right. I want you to make arrangements with these people yere to keep me; tuck my gold under my piller, stack old Betsey up yere in the corner by me, and go about your business. You come out yere to dig gold, not to take keer of cripples.”