cle Jim slowly. "Water
all over the Bar; the mud so deep ye couldn't get to Angel's for a sack
o' flour, and we had to grub on pine nuts and jackass-rabbits. And
yet--we stuck by the camp, and here we are!"

The mild answer apparently goaded their guest to fury. He rose from
his seat, threw back his long dripping hair from his handsome but
querulous face, and scattered a few drops on the partners. "Yes,
that's just it. That's what gets me! Here you stick, and here you
are! And here you'll stick and rust until you starve or drown! Here
you are,--two men who ought to be out in the world, playing your part
as grown men,---stuck here like children 'playing house' in the woods;
playing work in your wretched mud-pie ditches, and content. Two men
not so old that you mightn't be taking your part in the fun of the
world, going to balls or theatres, or paying attention to girls, and
yet old enough to have married and have your families around you,
content to stay in this God-forsaken place; old bachelors, pigging
together like poor-house paupers. That's what gets me! Say you like
_it_? Say you expect by hanging on to make a strike--and what does
that amount to? What are _your_ chances? How many of us have made, or
are making, more than grub wages? Say you're willing to share and
share alike as you do--have you got enough for two? Aren't you
actually living off each other? Aren't you grinding each other down,
choking each other's struggles, as you sink together deeper and deeper
in the mud of this cussed camp? And while you're doing this, aren't
you, by your age and position here, holding out hopes to others that
you know cannot be fulfilled?"

Accustomed as they were to the half-querulous, half-humorous, but
always extravagant, criticism of the others, there was something so new
in this arraignment of themselves that the partners for a moment sat
silent. There was a slight flush on Uncle Billy's cheek, there was a
slight paleness on Uncle Jim's. He was the first to reply. But he did
so with a certain dignity which neither his partner nor their guest had
ever seen on his face before.

"As it's _our_ fire that's warmed ye up like this, Dick Bullen," he
said, slowly rising, with his hand resting on Uncle Billy's shoulder,
"and as it's _our_ whiskey that's loosened your tongue, I reckon we
must put up with what ye'r' saying, just as we've managed to put up
with our own way o' living, and not quo'll with ye und