"Do you ever expect to go back to the mines?"
"Yes. I should not be satisfied now to remain at the East. Where are you going?"
"And you want to get work to help support her?"
Robert looked at his companion. His plain, honest face impressed him favorably. He felt that he was a man in whom he could confide.
"I understand. You and he don't hitch horses. Is that so?"
"I will. I should like to ask somebody's advice. I want to know whether I have done right."
Robert told the story, and the miner listened attentively.
"Do you know what I think of that step-father of yours?"
"I think he is about as mean a skunk as I ever heard mentioned. What made your mother marry him?"
"I don't know. She must have been infatuated."
"I suppose you had an easy time at home."
"And now you will have to work for a living?"
"I see you're the right sort," said the miner approvingly.
They had reached the next station. In the next car there was a tumult and a noise as of men scuffling. The miner rose and opened the door of the car.
He and Robert saw the two men who had tried to swindle our hero in the hands of two angry men, who hustled them out of the car with such violence that they fell prostrate beside the track.
"These men tried to relieve me of my watch. They won't try it again in a hurry."
Bruised by the fall, the two men picked themselves up and slunk away.
"They're a precious pair of rascals," said the miner. "If we had them at the mines, they would soon dangle from the branch of a tree."
Jones and Barlow, the two men who had been so ignominiously expelled from the train, picked themselves up, and with faces flaming with anger shook their fists at the train in impotent wrath.
"This is an outrage, Jones," said Barlow, the taller of the two.
"So it is," said Jones, rubbing his knee, which had received an abrasion from falling on a flinty stone.
"They don't know how to treat a gentleman."
"I suppose the boy and that long-legged miner are laughing in their sleeves."
As he spoke, both turned their glances upon the car in which Robert and the miner were located, and saw both looking out of a car window. The miner's face wore a look of amusement and satisfaction, which was enough to anger the two adventurers.
"Good-by, boys!" he said. "You're leaving us in a hurry, but we won't forget you."