"I'm--I'm--going to--to the mines," explained Clarence, with some
hesitation. "I suppose this is the way."
The two men took their pipes from their lips, looked at each other,
completely wiped every vestige of expression from their faces with the
back of their hands, turned their eyes into the interior of the cabin,
and said, "Will yer come yer, now WILL yer?" Thus adjured, half a dozen
men, also bearded and carrying pipes in their mouths, straggled out of
the shanty, and, filing in front of it, squatted down, with their backs
against the boards, and gazed comfortably at the boy. Clarence began to
feel uneasy.
"I'll give," said one, taking out his pipe and grimly eying Clarence, "a
hundred dollars for him as he stands."
"And seein' as he's got that bran-new rig-out o' tools," said another,
"I'll give a hundred and fifty--and the drinks. I've been," he added
apologetically, "wantin' sunthin' like this a long time."
"Well, gen'lemen," said the man who had first spoken to him, "lookin'
at him by and large; takin' in, so to speak, the gin'ral gait of him in
single harness; bearin' in mind the perfect freshness of him, and the
coolness and size of his cheek--the easy downyness, previousness, and
utter don't-care-a-damnativeness of his coming yer, I think two hundred
ain't too much for him, and we'll call it a bargain."
Clarence's previous experience of this grim, smileless Californian chaff
was not calculated to restore his confidence. He drew away from the
cabin, and repeated doggedly, "I asked you if this was the way to the
mines."
"It ARE the mines, and these yere are the miners," said the first
speaker gravely. "Permit me to interdoose 'em. This yere's Shasta Jim,
this yere's Shotcard Billy, this is Nasty Bob, and this Slumgullion
Dick. This yere's the Dook o' Chatham Street, the Livin' Skeleton, and
me!"
"May we ask, fair young sir," said the Living Skeleton, who, however,
seemed in fairly robust condition, "whence came ye on the wings of the
morning, and whose Marble Halls ye hev left desolate?"
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