“Well, I don’t see what’s the matter with that sentiment now,” returned the second speaker good-humoredly; “only,” he added gravely, “we didn’t quarrel—­God forbid!”

There was something in the speaker’s tone which seemed to touch a common chord in their natures, and this was voiced by Barker with sudden and almost pathetic earnestness.  “I tell you what, boys, we ought to swear here to-night to always stand by each other—­in luck and out of it!  We ought to hold ourselves always at each other’s call.  We ought to have a kind of password or signal, you know, by which we could summon each other at any time from any quarter of the globe!”

“Come off the roof, Barker,” murmured Stacy, without lifting his eyes from the fire.  But Demorest smiled and glanced tolerantly at the younger man.

“Yes, but look here, Stacy,” continued Barker, “comrades like us, in the old days, used to do that in times of trouble and adventures.  Why shouldn’t we do it in our luck?”

“There’s a good deal in that, Barker boy,” said Demorest, “though, as a general thing, passwords butter no parsnips, and the ordinary, every-day, single yelp from a wolf brings the whole pack together for business about as quick as a password.  But you cling to that sentiment, and put it away with your gold-dust in your belt.”

“What I like about Barker is his commodiousness,” said Stacy.  “Here he is, the only man among us that has his future fixed and his preemption lines laid out and registered.  He’s already got a girl that he’s going to marry and settle down with on the strength of his luck.  And I’d like to know what Kitty Carter, when she’s Mrs. Barker, would say to her husband being signaled for from Asia or Africa.  I don’t seem to see her tumbling to any password.  And when he and she go into a new partnership, I reckon she’ll let the old one slide.”

“That’s just where you’re wrong!” said Barker, with quickly rising color.  “She’s the sweetest girl in the world, and she’d be sure to understand our feelings.  Why, she thinks everything of you two; she was just eager for you to get this claim, which has put us where we are, when I held back, and if it hadn’t been for her, by Jove! we wouldn’t have had it.”

“That was only because she cared for you,” returned Stacy, with a half-yawn; “and now that you’ve got your share she isn’t going to take a breathless interest in us.  And, by the way, I’d rather you’d remind us that we owe our luck to her than that she should ever remind you of it.”

“What do you mean?” said Barker quickly.  But Demorest here rose lazily, and, throwing a gigantic shadow on the wall, stood between the two with his back to the fire.  “He means,” he said slowly, “that you’re talking rot, and so is he.  However, as yours comes from the heart and his from the head, I prefer yours.  But you’re both making me tired.  Let’s have a fresh deal.”