This perhaps was what lay at the root of the hysteria surrounding what came to be known as the Gold Rush: Men desiring a feeling of fortune; the unlucky masses hoping to skin or borrow the luck of others, or the luck of a destination. A seductive notion, and one I thought to be wary of. To me, luck was something you either earned or invented through strength of character. You had to come by it honestly; you could not trick or bluff your way into it.

...but I could not sleep without proper covering and spent the rest of the night rewriting lost arguments from my past, altering history so that I emerged victorious.

The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know.

It is hard to find a friend,' I said. 'It is the hardest thing in this world,' he agreed.

Hurried business is bad business.

...things I had come to find humor in would make your honest man swoon.

I will admit he is unusual, but that is perhaps the closest I could come to complimenting him.