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Ah-wow and Ko-sing being inveterately lazy, contented themselves with digging just enough gold to enable them to purchase a sufficiency of the necessaries of life. But the region was extremely rich, as our adventurers found out very soon after their arrival.
It cannot be denied that appearances went very much against Ah-wow so much so, that Maxton, and even Captain Bunting, entertained suspicions as to his innocence, though they pleaded hard for his pardon.
Before starting on their return, while the rest of the party were crowding round and questioning Ko-sing, Bill Jones whose mind since he arrived in California seemed to be capable of only one sensation, that of surprise went up to Ah-wow, and glancing round, in order to make sure that he was not observed, laid his hand on his shoulder, and looked inquiringly into the Chinaman's face.
This set the matter at rest. Ah-wow was cast loose and congratulated by several of the bystanders on his escape, but there seemed a pretty general feeling amongst many of the others that they had been unjustly deprived of their prey, and there is no saying what might have happened had not another culprit appeared on the scene to divert their attention.
The Irishman at last grew desperate, and, taking Ah-wow by the pig-tail, vowed that if he deserted his post again, "he'd blow out all the brains he had if he had any at all an' if that wouldn't do, he'd cut him up into mince-meat, so he would."
Then, indeed, "the light of other days" shone again in retrospect on our adventurers with refulgent splendour; then Larry sank the butler, and came out as the miner as one of the partners of the "R'yal Bank o' Calyforny" then Ned and Tom related marvellous adventures, to the admiration of their respective wives, and the captain smote his thigh with frequency and emphasis, to the terror of the cat, and Bill Jones gave utterance to deeply-pregnant sentences, and told how that, on his last voyage to China, he had been up at Pekin, and had heard that Ah-wow had dug up a nugget of gold three times the size of his own head, and had returned to his native land a millionnaire, and been made a mandarin, and after that something else, and at last became prime minister of China so Bill had been told, but he wouldn't vouch for it, no how.
Ned Sinton and Larry O'Neil had been away in the mountains prospecting at the time when Ah-wow was captured and led to the settlement, near the first residence of our adventurers, to stand his trial. The others accompanied the condemned man, in order, if possible, to save him, leaving Jones behind to guard their property, and acquaint Ned with the state of affairs on his return.
This tail he was in the act of getting dressed when our party of miners broke in upon the privacy of his dressing-room. Ah-wow had a nose which was very flat and remarkably broad, with the nostrils pointing straight to the front. He also had a mouth which was extremely large, frightfully thick-lipped, and quite the reverse of pretty.
What can it be that old Thompson's so anxious about? Why didn't the old figur'-head use his pen more freely his tongue goes fast enough to drive the engines of a seventy-four. What is to be done?" Although Captain Bunting asked the question with thorough earnestness and much energy, looking first at Larry and then at Ah-wow, he received no reply.
Ah-wow was seated on a stone in front of his own log-hut, with his arms resting on his knees, and an expression of supreme felicity on his yellow face, while a countryman, in what appeared a night-gown, and an immense straw hat, dressed his tail for him.
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