Читать книгу The Last Chance: A Tale of the Golden West онлайн

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‘And do you mean to say, with five hundred pounds worth of specimens and nuggets in your pocket’—here he took up a small lump of pure gold—‘a five-ounce bit, if it’s anything—you nearly starved yourself to death—nearly died on the road? Hang it, man! you’ve run it too fine altogether.’

‘Couldn’t help it, Commissioner. What was I to do? You know what a new rush is like. Wouldn’t they have tracked me up, and pegged over the ground, if they’d known I’d gold about me? I’d have lost my year’s work—hard work, and lonely—starving myself all the while; perhaps had a crack on the head as well. And then where’d we been? For I’m going to give you a half share, Commissioner, if you’ll see me through, so’s I can go back, and take up the lease proper and shipshape. I hadn’t a shillin’ when I come away from the find, nor an ounce of flour, nor a bit of sugar; meat I hadn’t seen for a month; I was afraid to go for it. So I gammoned sick when I come in. It didn’t take any painting to do that. Said I’d been doin’ a “perish” in the ranges (wrong direction, of course), and was all broke up. Begged most of the way back—many a long mile, too—and here I am!’