voluble; and, as usual when in that mood, aggravatingly indirect. He
joked and teased and carried on like a small boy; and insisted on
ordering an elaborate dinner and a bottle of champagne, in the face of
even Johnny's scandalized expostulations. When Johnny protested against
expenditure, it was time to look out!

"This is on me! This is my party! Dry up, Johnny!" cried Talbot. "Fill
your glasses. Drink to the new enterprise; the Undertakers' Mining
Company, Unlimited."

"Undertakers?" I echoed.

"Well, you all look it. Call it the Gophers, then. Capital stock just
eight hundred and eighty dollars, fully subscribed. I suppose it is
fully subscribed, gentlemen?" He scrutinized us closely. "Ah, Frank! I
see we'll have to take your promissory note. But the artistic
certificates are not yet home from the engravers. Take your time. Maybe
a relative will die."

"Talbot," said I disgustedly, "if I hadn't happened to smell your breath
before supper I'd think you drunk."

"I _am_ drunk, old deacon," rejoined Talbot, "but with the Wine of
Enchantment--do you know your Persian? No? Well, then, this:

"Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I'll not ask for wine!"

"A woman!" grumbled the literal Yank.

"The best, the most capricious, the most beautiful woman in the world,"
cried Talbot, "whose smile intoxicates, whose frown drives to despair."

"What _are_ you drivelling about?" I demanded.

"The goddess fortune--what else? But come," and Talbot rose with a
sudden and startling transition to the calm and businesslike. "We can
smoke outside; and we must hear each other's reports."

He paid for the dinner, steadfastly refusing to let us bear our share. I
noticed that he had acquired one of the usual buckskin sacks, and shook
the yellow dust from the mouth of it to the pan of the gold scales with
quite an accustomed air.

We lit our pipes and sat down at one end of the veranda, where we would
not be interrupted.

"Fire ahead, Yank," advised Talbot.

"There's two ways of going to the mines," said Yank: "One is to go
overland by horses to Sutter's Fort or the new town of Sacramento, and
then up from there into the foothills of the big mountains way yonder.
The other is to take a boat and go up river to Sacramento and then pack
across with horses."

"How much is the river fare?" asked Talbot.

"You have to get a sailboat. It costs about forty dollars apiece."

"How long would it take?"

"Four or five da