His cares, at such a period, are too considerate to suffer him to be noisy.

Here, in Chestatee, Forrester well knew that a crowd implied little good-fellowship.

The ties which brought the gold-seekers and squatters together were not of a sort to produce cheerfulness and merriment.

Their very sports were savage, and implied a sort of fun which commonly gave pain to somebody.

He wondered, accordingly, as he listened to yells of laughter, and discordant shouts of hilarity; and he grew curious about the occasion of uproar.
"They're poking fun at some poor devil, that don't quite see what they're after." A nearer approach soon gave him a clue to the mystery; but all his farther speculations upon it were arrested, by a deep groan from the wounded man, and a writhing movement in the bottom of the wagon, as the wheel rolled over a little pile of stones in the road.
Forrester's humanity checked his curiosity.