"We've talked that over, Frank," said he, "and we've come to the conclusion that you must keep that and go home, just as you planned to do. You're the only man of us who has managed to keep what he has made. Johnny falls overboard and leaves his in the bottom of the Sacramento; Yank gets himself busted in a road-agent row; I--I--well, I blow soap bubbles! You've kept at it, steady and strong and reliable, and you deserve your good luck. You shouldn't lose the fruits of your labour because we, each in our manner, have been assorted fools." I listened to this speech with growing indignation; and at its conclusion I rose up full of what I considered righteous anger. My temper is very slow to rouse, but when once it wakes, it takes possession of me. "Look here, you fellows!" I cried, very red in the face, they tell me. "You answer me a few questions. Are we or are we not partners? Are we or are we not friends? Do you or do you not consider me a low-lived, white-livered, mangy, good-for-nothing yellow pup? Why, confound your pusillanimous souls, what do you mean by talking to me in that fashion? For just about two cents I'd bust your fool necks for you--every one of you!" I glared vindictively at them. "Do you suppose I'd make any such proposition to any of you--to ask you to sneak off like a whipped cur leaving me to take the----" "Hold on, Frank," interposed Talbot soothingly. "I didn't mean----" "Didn't you?" I cried. "Well, what in hell did you mean? Weren't you trying to make me out a quitter?" I had succeeded in working loose my heavy gold belt, and I dashed it on the table in front of them. "There! Now you send for some gold scales, right now, and you divide that up! Right here! Damn it all, boys," I ended, with what to a cynical bystander would have seemed rather a funny slump into the pathetic, "I thought we were all real friends! You've hurt my feelings!" It was very young, and very ridiculous--and perhaps (I can say it from the vantage of fifty years) just a little touching. At any rate, when I had finished, my comrades were looking in all directions, and Talbot cleared his throat a number of times before he replied. "Why, Frank," he said gently, at last, "of course we'll take it--we never dreamed--of course--it was stupid of us, I'll admit. Naturally, I see just how you feel----" "It comes to about seven hundred apiece, don't it?" drawled Yank. The commonplace remark saved the situation from bathos, as I am now certain shrewd old Yank knew it would. "What are you going to do with your shares, boys?" asked Talbot after a while. "Going back home, or mining? Speak up, Yank." Yank spat accurately out the open window. "I've been figgering," he replied. "And when you come right down to it, what's the use of going back? Ain't it just an idee we got that it's the proper thing to do? What's the matter with this country, anyway--barring mining?" "Barring mining?" echoed Talbot.