We may not get away from here for some
time yet, and if the Government will sell the place cheap, it wouldn't
be a bad spec' to buy it. Form a kind of 'Excelsior Company' among
ourselves, you know, and go shares."
The four men looked earnestly at each other. Already the lost Excelsior
and her mutinous crew were forgotten; even the incidents of the
morning--their arrest, the uncertainty of their fate, and the fact that
they were in the hands of a hostile community--appeared but as trivial
preliminaries to the new life that opened before them! They suddenly
became graver than they had ever been--even in the moment of peril.
"I don't see why we shouldn't," said Brace quickly. "We started out to
do that sort of thing in California, and I reckon if we'd found such a
spot as this on the Sacramento or American River we'd have been content.
We can take turns at housekeeping, prospect a little, and enter into
negotiations with the Government. I'm for offering them a fair sum for
this ridge and all it contains at once."
"The only thing against that," said Crosby slowly, "is the probability
that it is already devoted to some other use by the Government.
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