"Well, well! Put a screen between me and the blaze. I am not auld enou' yet, to require a blaze in August."
"To-morrow, it will be the first of September. How are you, mother?"
"Fine. That foolish fellow you left over the works came here—came special, mind ye—to tell me you were vera ill. He said he had received a letter from a Dr. Stuart, living in a place called Denver, saying you were at Death's door, or words to that effect; but I sent him back to his proper business wi' a solid rebuke for leaving it. I'm not the woman to thank any one for bringing me bad news—lies, too, very likely."
"No, I was very ill."
"Say so, where was there any necessity for the man to be sending word o' it half round the world? Nobody here could help. It was just making discomfort for no good at all."
"I suppose he thought, if I died, my friends might possibly like to know what had become of me."
"I wasna feared for you dying. Not I! I knew Robert Campbell had mair sense than to die among strangers. Then there was the works left to themselves, as it were, and that weary woman you've been seeking mair than four years, just found out, and I said to myself, if I know Robert Campbell, he won't be stravaganting to another world, whilst his affairs in this world are all helter-skelter."
"I have come here to put my affairs as I desire them. Then I am going back to California."
"I do not believe you. You are just leeing to me."
"Mother, I am going to sell the works. I want to live in California."