"That's it; let the chickens and the ranch go to thunder, as long as there's a stranger to trapse round with; go on!" Lance would have made some savage reply, but Flip interrupted.

"You know yourself, Dad, it's a blind trail, and as that 'ere constable that kem out here hunting French Pete, couldn't find it, and had to go round by the canon, like ez not the stranger would lose his way, and have to come back!" This dangerous prospect silenced the old man, and Flip and Lance stepped into the road together.

They walked on for some moments without speaking.

Suddenly Lance turned upon his companion.
"You did n't swallow all that rot about the diamond, did you ?" he asked, crossly.
Flip ran a little ahead, as if to avoid a reply.
"You don't mean to say that's the sort of hog wash the old man serves out to you regularly ?" continued Lance, becoming more slangy in his ill temper.
"I don't know that it's any consarn o' yours what I think," replied Flip, hopping from boulder to boulder, as they crossed the bed of a dry watercourse.
"And I suppose you've piloted round and dry-nussed every tramp and dead-beat you've met since you came here," continued Lance, with unmistakable ill humor.

"How many have you helped over this road ?" "It's a year since there was a Chinaman chased by some Irishmen from the Crossing into the brush about yer, and he was too afeered to come out, and nigh most starved to death in thar.