“Well, for us it would mean that we had failed, Bush and I, in everything; that we hadn't the ability to even hold on to what father left us. No, no, dear, the family can't go to the dogs quite yet: It's true we have no children, and sometimes I have been almost thankful, but there's Bush's boy to carry on the name; he's got to have his chance in life. I only hope he'll turn out a shrewder hand than either his father or uncle!” “There will be enough, there has always been enough.” “That doesn't follow: We have about reached the point now where we'll feel the pinch. You mustn't think that anything short of a real need would take me from you; only that shall separate us, and the separation will be but brief; and then Bush and I will come back with a fortune—” “Only return safe and well, dear, and never mind about the fortune,” she said tenderly, as they turned back into the house. CHAPTER SEVEN THE town bell had struck the hour, three clanging strokes, and even as their echoes lingered in the silence and the night, a candle blinked like a solitary eye in an upper window of Levi Tucker's red-brick tavern. The night wind, an evil searching wind, that cut like a knife and chilled to the bone, swept both snow and rain in troubled gusts across the square; while the last quarter of an April moon gave a faint uncertain radiance. Smoke, illumined by a few flying sparks, which the wind promptly extinguished, issued from the tavern's kitchen chimney, and diffused itself low over the adjacent housetops. It seemed to bring with it certain domestic odours, as if a breakfast were being prepared, and so it was, the last which three members of the Benson and California Mining and Trading Company anticipated sitting down to in the town of Benson in many a long day. The three wagons containing' the company's property stood before the tavern door, their white canvas covers tightly drawn; and Robert Dunlevy who, with young Walsh and Bingham, was to accompany the Landrays, was already busy in the stable putting their harness on the horses. He wondered why Bingham and Jim, Mr. Tucker's stableman, after promising over night to help him with the teams, had failed to appear; but evidently they had overslept themselves. Across the yard in the inn he heard Mr. Tucker, his voice pitched in a most unusual key; but he was far too intent on his work to even pause to listen to what was passing there. Presently, Jacob Benson and Bushrod Landray, well muffled in their great coats, hurried across the square; by the wagons they paused. “This looks like business, don't it?” said Landray cheerfully. “I guess we are the first,” remarked the lawyer, glancing about. “No, Rogers is stirring; I saw a light in his room a moment ago. Let's go in; Tucker promised to have a breakfast for us.”