However, As They
Wished To Travel Separate From Us, If There Should Be Two
Villages At All Within Suitable Distances, They Could Stop At
One And We At The Other.
There the matter rested.
But our
guide was more frightened than ever. They were four to two,
he argued, for neither he nor the Mexican were armed. And
there was no saying, etc., etc. . . . In short we had better
stay where we were till they got through. Fred laughed at
the fellow's alarm, and told him he might stop if he liked,
but we meant to go on.
As usual, when we reached the next stage, the diggers were
before us; and when our men began to unsaddle at a hut about
fifty yards from where they were feeding their horses, one of
them, the biggest blackguard to look at of the lot, and
though the fiercest probably the greatest cur, shouted at us
to put the saddles on again and 'get out of that.' He had
warned us in the morning that they'd had enough of us, and,
with a volley of oaths, advised us to be off. Fred, who was
in his shirt-sleeves, listened at first with a look of
surprise at such cantankerous unreasonableness; but when the
ruffian fell to swear and threaten, he burst into one of his
contemptuous guffaws, turned his back and began to feed his
horse with a corncob. Thus insulted, the digger ran into the
hut (as I could see) to get his rifle.
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