a bit of a doctor and a bit of a lawyer, and if you will accept my services I shall be glad to accompany you back to Bidaud's plantation."
"But why?" asked Basil, touched by the apparently unselfish offer. "I have no claim upon you."
"Except the claim that one gentleman has upon another-which should count for something. It always has with me."
"Upon my word I don't know how to thank you."
"Don't try. It is myself I am rendering a service to, not you. This deserted hole, and the association of those men" – jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the tent-"sicken me. Does there not come to some men a crisis in their lives which compels them to turn over a new leaf, as the saying is, to cut themselves away entirely from the past and commence life anew?"
"Yes," said Basil, struck by the application of this figure of speech to his own circumstances, "it has come to me."
"And to me. I intended to leave Gum Flat to-morrow, and I did not know in which direction. I felt like Robinson Crusoe on the desert island, without a friend, without a kindred soul to talk to, to associate with. If you will allow me to look upon you as a friend you will put me under a deep obligation. Should the brother of the poor gentleman who died so suddenly this morning-the father of that sweet young lady of whom you speak so tenderly-succeed in having things all his own way, you will be cast adrift, as I am. It is best to look things straight in the face, is it not? – even unpleasant things."
"It is the most sensible course," said Basil.
"Exactly. The most sensible course-and the most manly. Why should not you and I throw in our fortunes together? I am sure we should suit each other."
"I can but thank you," said Basil. "It is worth thinking over."
"All right; there is plenty of time before us. Let us go into the store now. A word of warning first. The men inside are not to be trusted. I was thrown into their company against my will, and I felt that the association was degrading to me. We can't pick and choose in this part of the world."
"Indeed we cannot. I will not forget your warning. To speak honestly, I am not in the mood or condition for society. I have had a hard day, and am dead beat."
"You would like to turn in," said Chaytor. "I can give you a shakedown, and for supper what remains of a tin of biscuits and a tin of sardines. There, don't say a word. The luck's on my side. Come along."
The Nonentities and Jim the Hatter were in the midst of a wrangle when they entered, and scarcely noticed them. This left Chaytor free to attend to Basil. He placed before him the biscuits and sardines, and produced a flask of brandy. Basil was grateful for the refreshment; he was thoroughly exhausted, and it renewed his strength and revived his drooping spirits. Then he filled his pipe, and conversed in low tones with his new friend, while the gamblers continued their game.
"If I stop up much longer," said Basil, when he had had his smoke, "I shall drop off my seat."
Chaytor rose and preceded him to the further end of the store. The building, if such a designation may be allowed to an erection composed of only wood and canvas, had been the most pretentious and imposing in the palmy days of the township, and although now it was all tattered and torn, like the man in the nursery rhyme, it could still boast of half a dozen private compartments in which sleepers could find repose and solitude. The walls of course were of calico, and for complete privacy darkness was necessary.
Chaytor and the three gamblers who were bending over their cards in the dim light of the larger space without, each occupied one of these sleeping compartments. Two remained vacant, and into one of these Chaytor led Basil.
There was a stretcher in the room, a piece of strong canvas nailed upon four pieces of batten driven into the ground. The canvas was bare; there were no bedclothes.
"I have two blankets," said Chaytor, "I can spare you one."
Basil was too tired to protest. Dressed as he was he threw himself upon the stretcher, drew the blanket over him, and bidding his hospitable friend good-night, and thanking him again, was fast asleep almost as the words passed his lips.
Newman Chaytor stood for a moment or two gazing upon the sleeping man. "I can't be dreaming," he thought; "he is here before me, and I am wide awake. I drink to the future." He held no glass, but he went through the pantomime of drinking out of one.
Taking the lighted candle with him he joined his mates, and left Basil sleeping calmly in darkness. They were no longer playing cards, but with heads close together were debating in whispers. Upon Chaytor's entrance they shifted their positions and ceased talking.
"Have you put your gentleman to bed?" asked Jim the Hatter, in a sneering tone in which a sinister ring might have been detected.
"Much obliged to you for the inquiry," replied Chaytor, prepared to fence; "he is sound asleep."
"Interesting child! A case of love at first sight, mates."
Nonentities Numbers One and Two nodded, with dark looks at Chaytor, who smiled genially at them and commenced to smoke.
"Or," said Jim the Hatter, "perhaps an old acquaintance."
"Take your choice," observed Chaytor, who, in finesse and coolness, was a match for the three.
"Doesn't it strike you, Newman, that it's taking a liberty with us to feed and bolster him up, and stand drinks as well, without asking whether we was agreeable?"
"Not at all. The sardines were mine, the biscuits were mine, the grog was mine. If you want to quarrel, say so."
"I'm for peace and quietness," said Jim the Hatter, threateningly. "I was only expressing my opinion."
"And I mine. Look here, mates, I don't want to behave shabbily, so I'll tell you what is in my mind."
"Ah, do," said Jim the Hatter, with a secret sign to the Nonentities which Chaytor did not see; "then we shall know where we are."
"I'll tell you where we are, literally, mates. We're in a heaven-forsaken township, running fast to bone, which leads to skeleton. Now I'm not prepared for that positive eventuality just yet. This world is good enough for me at present, and I mean to do my best to enjoy it."
"Can't you enjoy it in our company?" asked Jim the Hatter.
"I think not," said Chaytor, with cool insolence. "The best of friends must part."
"Oh, that's your little game, is it?"
"That is my little game. I am growing grey. If I don't look out I shall be white before I am thirty. Really I think it must be the effect of the company I have kept."
"We're not good enough for you, I suppose?"
"If you ask for my deliberate opinion I answer, most distinctly not. No, mates, not by a long way good enough."
"Don't be stuck up, mate. Better men than you have had to eat humble pie."
"Any sort of pie," said Chaytor, philosophically, "is better than no pie at all. Take my advice. Bid good-bye to Gum Flat, gigantic fraud that it is, and go in search of big nuggets. That is what I am going to do."
"With your gentleman friend?"
"With my gentleman friend. We may as well part civilly, but if you choose the other thing I am agreeable." The three men rose with
