"What _are_ you drivelling about?" I demanded.
"The goddess fortune--what else? But come," and Talbot rose with a sudden and startling transition to the calm and businesslike. "We can smoke outside; and we must hear each other's reports."
He paid for the dinner, steadfastly refusing to let us bear our share. I noticed that he had acquired one of the usual buckskin sacks, and shook the yellow dust from the mouth of it to the pan of the gold scales with quite an accustomed air.
We lit our pipes and sat down at one end of the veranda, where we would not be interrupted.
"There's two ways of going to the mines," said Yank: "One is to go overland by horses to Sutter's Fort or the new town of Sacramento, and then up from there into the foothills of the big mountains way yonder. The other is to take a boat and go up river to Sacramento and then pack across with horses."
"How much is the river fare?" asked Talbot.
"You have to get a sailboat. It costs about forty dollars apiece."
"And how long from here to Sutter's Fort by horse?"
"Depends then on whether horses are cheaper here or there."
"They are cheaper there; or we can get our stuff freighted in by Greasers and hoof it ourselves."
"Then I should think we ought to have a boat."
"Good for you!" cried Talbot. "You're a man after my own heart! Well, Johnny?"
Johnny told his tale, a little proudly and produced his required two hundred and twenty dollars.
"You had luck," said Talbot non-committally, "and you ran a strong risk of coming back here without a cent, didn't you? I want to ask you one question, Johnny. If you had lost, would you have been willing to have taken the consequences?"
"What do you mean?" asked Johnny blankly.
"Would you have been willing to have dropped out of this partnership?"
"I mean," said Talbot kindly, "that you had no right to try to get this money by merely a gambler's chance unless you were willing to accept the logical result if you failed. It isn't fair to the rest of us."
"I see what you mean," said Johnny slowly. "No; I hadn't thought of it that way."
"Well, as I said, you had luck," repeated Talbot cheerfully, "so we needn't think of it further." It was characteristic that Johnny took this veiled rebuke from Talbot Ward in a meek and chastened spirit; from any one else his high temper could never stand even a breath of criticism. "How about you, Frank?" Talbot asked me.