The Pearsons, flustered and pink with embarrassment, collected up their bags and their trunks. The Mexican climbed to his feet, limping and hopping, and swearing in the names of St Catherine and St Theresa and two dozen other saints. Each curse was punctuated with a threatening gesture at Collis, but he stayed well clear as he unharnessed his nag so that it could clamber awkwardly to its feet, and righted his wagon with the noisy and enthusiastic help of the crowd.

Mr Pearson came over and shook Collis’s hand. ‘That was most courageous of you to do that for us,’ he said. ‘I guess we nearly had ourselves taken for suckers. When we’re settled, you must come around for a Sunday dinner. Just leave your address at the post office, and we’ll get in touch.’

Collis dusted the sleeves of his coat. A boy from the crowd handed him his hat. ‘It wasn’t anything to shout about. But I was told that you have to watch your step while you’re here. Just about everything’s in short supply, except for gold, and a family’s belongings could fetch a fair price.’

Mrs Pearson, all bonnet and beak, wrung her hands together and exclaimed, ‘You were extraordinary, that’s the only word. Extraordinary.’

Collis took her wrinkled glove, brushed it against his lips, and smiled. ‘My pleasure, Mrs Pearson.’

Mrs Pearson blushed and twittered and then went back to her two plain pigtailed daughters, who had been standing watching the whole proceedings with a relentless lack of interest.

He forced his way back through the crowd to where he had left his own trunk. At first he couldn’t see it, and for one dreadful moment he thought that it had been hauled away by yet another of the Broadway Wharf parasites. But a pimply youth with a pipe in his mouth said, ‘Y’r baggage is over there, mister,’ and indicated with a jerk of his head the side of a green-painted wooden office building which stood by the jetty.

Collis made his way over to the building; and right enough, there were his trunk and his bag, although sitting on his trunk with his legs crossed and his hat tipped over one eye was a short round-bellied man in a loud hound’s-tooth suit of ginger and green and a glaring yellow vest, a man with bulging cheeks that were as sunburned as roasted pullets, and a ginger moustache, and a small bright nose. He took off his hat as Collis approached, and waved it, but he didn’t make any effort to get up.

‘Good morning!’ he said.

‘Good morning,’ answered Collis. ‘I guess I ought to thank you for keeping your eye on my trunk.’

‘Not my eye, my ass.’ The fat man smiled. ‘Anybody can whip anything from under your eye, but from under your ass is a different matter.’

‘Yes,’ said Collis, slightly perplexed, ‘I suppose you’re right.’