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Show 332 PERSONAL ADVENTURES having heard a word of you after we parted co1npany. Ah, then, do you remernber the .scrimmage we had with the Y akees in the d d caitherasses in the Io,ver country? Didn't I pick down that skulking Indian in beautiful style?" " Oh, I have not forgotten the affair, I pron1ise you; for my body was mapped with red lines, by the thorns, for a fortnight afterwards. Bless me, how fat you have grown since ·I saw you last! Why, you must have stumbled upon some vein of milk and honey in this land of starvation !" " The devil a bit of it! I've been livin' on tobacco-smoke and point ever since I've been at the mines. There's nothing that swells a man out like that sort of prog; but the worst of it is, if you happen to meet with any hard rubs while you're feedin' on it, you've a chance of collapsing in a minute." "By the by," said I, smiling at the conceit, , " what sort of luck have you had at the mines?" "Oh, I did purty fair, considherin'. I win· IN CALIFORNIA. 333 thered up there, the last season; an' a divilish hard time we had of it. What with the substantial fare I've just been tellin' you of, an' the rain, an' the could, an' the snow, we could only work now and then; but, on the whole, I suppose I n1usn't complain. I dug about six thousand dollars' -worth, altogether; but three thousand of that went for expenses; an' after stickin' at it as long as I thought I could stand it, I detern1ined to make a start, an' go home with the rest to the ould \voman." " Yon don't mean to say that you are married?" " Me married ! No, by J abers ! though it's my own fault. A rich ranchero's daught '' " Hold hard, O'Reilly ! I've heard that story before," hastily interrupted I, apprehensive that he was about to inflict on me one of those unconscionable yarns in which he was in the habit of indulging, and which generally \Vent to show the high degree of estimation in which he was held by the senoritas, and the overpowering anxiety of the wealthy rancl~eros to convert hirn into a son-in-law· |