"I should never have got her to agree to it, uncle. I wanted to go to sea, but after father's death she would not hear of it. She said I was her only boy and that she could not spare me, and I had to promise to give up the thought. She was still more against your plan, but when I wrote to you I thought that possibly in time she might agree to it. But it was not long afterwards that her health began to fail, and I saw then that I must give up all thought of leaving her, and must, when I left school, take anything that offered; and it was only after her death that I talked it over with the girls, and they agreed that to come here was the best thing for me."
"And you left before my last letter arrived?"
"Yes; we had no letter after the one you wrote asking me to come out."
"No, I suppose you could not have had it. I wrote before I started out three months ago from Salt Lake City. I had struck a ledge of pretty good stuff, I and another. We sold out for a thousand dollars, and I sent my share off to your mother, telling her that I had been having bad luck since I got her letter, but that I hoped to do better in future, and I thought, anyhow, I could promise to send her as much once a year, and if I had a real stroke of luck she and her girls would have the benefit of it."
"Not good at all," Harry Wade grumbled. "I have behaved like a fool all along; it is true that when I did get letters from your father, which was not very often, he always wrote cheerfully, and said very little about how he was situated as to money. But I ought to have known--I did know, if I thought of it--that with a wife and six children it must be mighty hard to make ends meet on a lieutenant's half-pay, and there was I, often throwing away twice as much as his year's pension on a week's spree. When I heard he was gone you may pretty well guess how I felt. However, lad, if things turn out well I will make it up as far as I can. Now, let us join the others."
The others, however, were all sound asleep, having wrapped themselves in their blankets, and lain down as soon as the halt was decided upon. Jerry, having had no sleep the previous night, and but little for four or five days, had not even thought of asking the others for food, which they doubtless had on their saddles, although he had tasted nothing for twenty-four hours. Tom, however, less accustomed to enforced fasts, felt ravenous.