Here Tom got upon his feet and walked back and forth in front of his brother, shaking his fists in the air and swearing audibly.
“Those three thousand dollars didn’t do you much good, did they?” said Oscar, after a moment’s pause.
“Where did I get three thousand dollars?” demanded Tom, suddenly stopping in his walk and looking down at his brother.
“I am sure I don’t know; but an examination of your accounts showed a deficit to that amount.”
“Ah! That may be; but I didn’t have any such sum when I came out here. I spent a good deal before I left Eaton.”
“What did you do with the money you brought with you?” inquired Oscar, who hardly expected that Tom would reply to the question.
Tom nodded his head, and resumed his walk.
“Why, I was fool enough to buck the tiger down in Denver, if you must know,” answered Tom snappishly. “I wanted to increase my capital, and the consequence was I lost it all.”
“You don’t mean to say that you gambled it away?” Oscar almost gasped.
“Well, that’s about the plain English of it,” was the careless reply.
“O Tom!” exclaimed Oscar. “What do you suppose mother would say if she knew it?”
“I don’t intend that she shall know it, and she never will unless you get to swinging that long tongue of yours. It was my intention to shut myself out so completely from the world that nobody in Eaton would ever hear of me again; and I should have succeeded if some evil genius had not sent you prowling through this ravine. What brought you here, anyway? I tell you again that I can’t take care of you, and I won’t, either! By the way, for how much did you get into old Smith?”
It was plain enough to be seen that Tom, in his endeavors to account for his brother’s unexpected presence in that country, was shooting wide of the mark. He readily believed that Oscar, like himself, had stolen money from his employers and fled from Eaton in order to escape punishment at the hands of the law.
He could not think of anything else that would be likely to bring Oscar so far away from home.
“There’s just one thing about it,” said Tom to himself, after he had looked at the matter from all points and arrived at what he considered to be a perfectly satisfactory conclusion, “his money will soon be wasted—if it hasn’t been wasted already—and now that he has found me, he will naturally expect me to help him; but I can’t do it, and I won’t, and he might as well know it first as last. How much money did you bring away from Eaton with you?” he asked aloud.