“Five thousand dollars!” cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening his great gray eyes at me. And then he remembered the tale which he had told, to make me seem independent. “Oh yes, to be sure, my dear; now I recollect. To be sure--to be sure--your own five thousand dollars. But never will I touch one cent of your nice little fortune; no, not to save my life. After all, I am not so gone in years but what I can build the mill again myself. The Lord hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me still with machinery. And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a job pretty fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has not pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me. But that is all for the best, no doubt. If Ephraim had too much of brains, he might have contradicted me. And that I could never abide, God knows, from any green young jackanapes.” “Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something--something very important!” “No, my dear, nothing more just now. It has done me good to have a little talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me. But just go and ask whatever is become of Firm. He was riled with them greasers. It was all I could do to keep the boy out of a difficulty with them. And if they camp any where nigh, it is like enough he may go hankerin' after them. The grand march of intellect hathn't managed yet to march old heads upon young shoulders. And Firm might happen to go outside the law.” The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though mild of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from tales of Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol of him. And now, when she could not say where he was, but only was sure that he must be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great medicine man which she had hung about him), it seemed to me, according to what I was used to, that in these regions human life was held a great deal too lightly. It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is the duty of a fellow-creature. He was a very good young man, and in his way good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite, and a very good carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly always listened. But of course he was not to be compared as yet to his grandfather, the true Sawyer. When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm, and the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found Mr. Gundry in a genial mood. He never made himself uneasy about any trifles. He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways of Providence, and having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure that he never could lose Firm. He had taken his glass of hot whiskey and water, which always made him temperate; and if he felt any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on them now from a high point of view.