“You see my duty,” he said. “My only thought is about you, my dear child. Will you stay here?”
She simply replied, looking into his face without a tremor:
“My place is with you.” Then the conductor called “All aboard,” and the train once more started.
Sinclair asked Foster to join him in the smoking compartment and tell him the promised story, which the latter did. His rescue at Barker's, he frankly and gratefully said, had been the turning point in his life. In brief, he had “sworn off” from gambling and drinking, had found honest employment, and was doing well.
“I've two things to do now, Major,” he added; “first, I must show my gratitude to you; and next”—he hesitated a little—“I want to find that poor girl that I left behind at Barker's. She was engaged to marry me, and when I came to think of it, and what a life I'd have made her lead, I hadn't the heart till now to look for her; but, seeing I'm on the right track, I'm going to find her, and get her to come with me. Her father's an—old scoundrel, but that ain't her fault, and I ain't going to marry him.”
“Foster,” quietly asked Sinclair, “do you know the Perry gang?”
The man's brow darkened.
“Know them?” said he. “I know them much too well. Perry is as ungodly a cutthroat as ever killed an emigrant in cold blood, and he's got in his gang nearly all those hounds that tried to hang me. Why do you ask, Major?”
Sinclair handed him the despatches. “You are the only man on the train to whom I have shown them,” said he.
Foster read them slowly, his eyes lighting up as he did so. “Looks as if it was true,” said he.