"Mighty bitter!" he said, glancing at his hosts with the quick
Californian suspicion of some practical joke. But the honest faces of
the partners reassured him.

"That bitterness ye taste," said Uncle Jim quickly, "is whar the
thing's gittin' in its work. Sorter sickenin' the malaria--and kinder
water-proofin' the insides all to onct and at the same lick! Don't yer
see? Put another in yer vest pocket; you'll be cryin' for 'em like a
child afore ye get home. Thar! Well, how's things agoin' on your claim,
Dick? Boomin', eh?"

The guest raised his head and turned it sufficiently to fling his answer
back over his shoulder at his hosts. "I don't know what YOU'D call'
boomin','" he said gloomily; "I suppose you two men sitting here
comfortably by the fire, without caring whether school keeps or not,
would call two feet of backwater over one's claim 'boomin';' I reckon
YOU'D consider a hundred and fifty feet of sluicing carried away,
and drifting to thunder down the South Fork, something in the way of
advertising to your old camp! I suppose YOU'd think it was an inducement
to investors! I shouldn't wonder," he added still more gloomily, as a
sudden dash of rain down the wide-throated chimney dropped in his
tin cup--"and it would be just like you two chaps, sittin' there
gormandizing over your quinine--if yer said this rain that's lasted
three weeks was something to be proud of!"

It was the cheerful and the satisfying custom of the rest of the camp,
for no reason whatever, to hold Uncle Jim and Uncle Billy responsible
for its present location, its vicissitudes, the weather, or any
convulsion of nature; and it was equally the partners' habit, for no