 have know'd strong men obleeged to make themselves uncommon skase
for less. I have know'd men Lynched for less, and beaten into punkin'-sarse for
less, by an enlightened people. We are the intellect and virtue of the airth,
the cream Of human natur', and the flower Of moral force. Our backs is easy ris.
We must be cracked-up, or they rises, and we snarls. We shows our teeth, I tell
you, fierce. You'd better crack us up, you had!«
    After the delivery of this caution, Mr. Chollop departed; with Ripper,
Tickler, and the revolvers, all ready for action on the shortest notice.
    »Come out from under the blanket, sir,« said Mark, »he's gone. What's this!«
he added softly: kneeling down to look into his partner's face, and taking his
hot hand. »What's come of all that chattering and swaggering? He's wandering in
his mind to-night, and don't know me!«
    Martin indeed was dangerously ill; very near his death. He lay in that state
many days, during which time Mark's poor friends, regardless of themselves,
attended him. Mark, fatigued in mind and body; working all the day and sitting
up at night; worn with hard living and the unaccustomed toil of his new life;
surrounded by dismal and discouraging circumstances of every kind; never
complained or yielded in the least degree. If ever he had thought Martin selfish
or inconsiderate, or had deemed him energetic only by fits and starts, and then
too passive for their desperate fortunes, he now forgot it all. He remembered
nothing but the better qualities of his fellow-wanderer, and was devoted to him,
heart and hand.
    Many weeks elapsed before Martin was strong enough to move about with the
help of a stick and Mark's arm; and even then his recovery, for want of
wholesome air and proper nourishment, was very slow. He was yet in a feeble and
weak condition, when the misfortune he had so much dreaded fell upon them. Mark
was taken ill.
    Mack fought against it; but the malady fought harder, and his efforts were
in vain.
    »Floored for the present, sir,« he said one morning, sinking back upon his
bed: »but jolly!«
    Floored indeed, and by a heavy blow! As any one but Martin might have known
beforehand.
    If Mark's friends had been kind to
