"Won't you stop and rest with us?" said Joe politely.

"I reckon I will," said the Pike man, getting off his beast. "You
don't happen to have a bottle of whisky with you, strangers?"

"No," said Joe.

The newcomer looked disappointed.

"I wish you had," said he. "I feel as dry as a tinder-box. Where
might you be travelin'?"

"We are bound for the mines on the Yuba River."

"That's a long way off."

"Yes, it's four or five days' ride."

"I've been there, and I don't like it. It's too hard work for a
gentleman."

This was uttered in such a magnificent tone of disdain that Joe was
rather amused at the fellow. In his red shirt and coarse breeches,
and brown, not overclean skin, he certainly didn't look much like a
gentleman in the conventional sense of that term.

"It's all well enough to be a gentleman if you've got money to fall
back on," remarked Joshua sensibly.

"Is that personal?" demanded the Pike County man, frowning and half