“Sympathy without reliefIs like mustard without beef.”
“Sympathy without reliefIs like mustard without beef.”
“Sympathy without reliefIs like mustard without beef.”
“Sympathy without relief
Is like mustard without beef.”
“But what has this ‘salting a dog’ got to do with ‘salting a mine’? I can see now, at any rate, the origin of ‘saving one’s bacon,’ for I expect the dogs would make a bee line for home on finding themselves thus salted down,—but why all this about dogs? You don’t think any one has been firing salt into Don, do you?”
“No, lad,” Williams says, “you don’t take me. In the rough old diggin’s we always used to empty our revolvers about sundown, if we did it at all. Those who made the most show about doing this were mostly new hands, but that’s neither here nor there. I mean you wouldn’t hear no firing after nightfall. If there should happen to be a shot fired it was either a murder or a robbery, and the whole camp would turn out. But if it turned out to be only a hoax, the boys would skylark round, and mayhap the man who started the fun would have to put on a roller bandage instead of a shirt for the next few weeks.”
“I see,” remarks Claude, knowing that it is of no use to attempt to hurry the old miner, who always moves towards the main subject of his remarks after the manner of a hawk approaching its prey, namely, in circles.
“Well, some chap invented this plan of punishing the dogs, and then firing at night got to be quite common. Instead of turning out when you heard a shot, you’d say ter your mate, ‘Oh, some one’s cur is gettin’ salted.’ By-and-by all kinds of shooting got to be called ‘salting,’ and from that, not only firing gold into a reef, but every kind of swindle, went by the same name.”
“You’ve explained it very well,” Claude says, asWilliams closes his remarks, “and, as regards little Don, I thought myself it might be a try on till I examined his feet, and found that the toes on his left foot have evidently been damaged at some time or other.” Angland then discloses to his companion what Glory Giles had told him about the accident that befell her baby brother, which we have related for the benefit of our readers.
“And now, Williams, what ought I to do? I somehow feel I should send Don back to Giles at once. I might send Joe and General Gordon with him, but it would be risky work with one waterbag. That’s the only reason, as you know, I’ve not sent Gordon and his mate back before.”
“Send him back!” exclaims the elder man; “not a bit of it. Providence, lad, has given yer the boy to keep for a time, and it would be going agin yer luck to send him back. Don’t you go out of your way to chuck what Providence has lent you, just to oblige a man who you don’t count as a friend, anyhow. A very obliging man is another name for a fool, take my word for it. Besides, how do you know these Myall blacks wouldn’t knock both the boys on the head if they got a chance? They would do it, and no fear they wouldn’t, if they thought Don was Giles’s son. Wouldn’t they like to get square with old Giles! He has polished off a good many of their relatives, if you ask me. No!” adds the speaker in a voice that shows he puts his foot down at what he says, “we’ll all go back together. You’ll be able to play this trump card, my son, better when you’ve got some more in your fist, as Providence is going to give you shortly.”