Publisher's Synopsis
"What do you think, chief?" The speaker, who was leading by a half a length, turned in his saddle and looked at his companion. "Push on," growled the chief, who was a man of few words. "If you were not so intolerably conceited about the value of your words-hang it, man, you are not the Poet Laureate!-you might give your reasons why we should not camp where we are. The sun will be down in two hours; the way is long, the wind is cold, or will be soon. This pilgrim has tightened his belt to stave off the gnawing at his stomach; here is running water, here is wood, here is everything calculated to charm the poetic mind even of Captain Ladds--" "Road!" interrupted his fellow-traveller, pointing along the track marked more by deep old wheel-ruts, grown over with grass, than by any evidences of engineering skill. "Roads lead to places; places have beds; beds are warmer than grass-no rattlesnakes in beds; miners in hotels-amusing fellows, miners." "If ever I go out again after buffaloes, or bear, or mountain-deer, or any other game whatever which this great continent offers, with a monosyllabic man, may I be condemned to another two months of buffalo steak without Worcester sauce, such as I have had already; may I be poisoned with bad Bourbon whisky; may I never again see the sweet shady side of Pall Mall; may I--"
