Tommy looked up, shook his head, threw a stone at a passing rabbit, but did not reply.

“When I fust set eyes on you, Tommy,” continued Johnson, apparently reassured, “the fust day you kem and pumped for me, an entire stranger, and hevin no call to do it, I sez, ‘Johnson, Johnson,’ sez I,’ yer’s a boy you kin trust.  Yer’s a boy that won’t play you; yer’s a chap that’s white and square,’—­white and square, Tommy:  them’s the very words I used.”

He paused for a moment, and then went on in a confidential whisper, “‘You want capital, Johnson,’ sez I, ’to develop your resources, and you want a pardner.  Capital you can send for, but your pardner, Johnson,—­your pardner is right yer.  And his name, it is Tommy Islington.’  Them’s the very words I used.”

He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon his knees.  “It’s six months ago sens I made you my pardner.  Thar ain’t a lick I’ve struck sens then, Tommy, thar ain’t a han’ful o’ yearth I’ve washed, thar ain’t a shovelful o’ rock I’ve turned over, but I tho’t o’ you.  ’Share, and share alike,’ sez I. When I wrote to my agint, I wrote ekal for my pardner, Tommy Islington, he hevin no call to know ef the same was man or boy.”

He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps have laid his hand caressingly upon him, but even in his manifest affection there was a singular element of awed restraint and even fear,—­a suggestion of something withheld even his fullest confidences, a hopeless perception of some vague barrier that never could be surmounted.  He may have been at times dimly conscious that, in the eyes which Tommy raised to his, there was thorough intellectual appreciation, critical good-humor, even feminine softness, but nothing more.  His nervousness somewhat heightened by his embarrassment, he went on with an attempt at calmness which his twitching white lips and unsteady fingers made pathetically grotesque.  “Thar’s a bill o’ sale in my bunk, made out accordin’ to law, of an ekal ondivided half of the claim, and the consideration is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,—­gambling debts,—­gambling debts from me to you, Tommy,—­you understand?”—­nothing could exceed the intense cunning of his eye at this moment,—­“and then thar’s a will.”

“A will?” said Tommy, in amused surprise.

Johnson looked frightened.

“Eh?” he said, hurriedly, “wot will?  Who said anythin’ ’bout a will, Tommy?”

“Nobody,” replied Tommy, with unblushing calm.

Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead, wrung the damp ends of his hair with his fingers, and went on:  “Times when I’m took bad ez I was to-day, the boys about yer sez—­you sez, maybe, Tommy—­it’s whiskey.  It ain’t, Tommy.  It’s pizen,—­quicksilver pizen.  That’s what’s the matter with me.  I’m salviated!  Salviated with merkery.

“I’ve heerd o’ it before,” continued Johnson, appealing to the boy, “and ez a boy o’ permiskus reading, I reckon you hev too.  Them men as works in cinnabar sooner or later gets salviated.  It’s bound to fetch ’em some time.  Salviated by merkery.”