“Well, you did a sight better for yourself than I could have done for you, so there’s no need to cast that up at me,” he said, with another wriggle. “I promised to send you some money if I had any to send, or if I knew where you were. But luck has been against me all the time. Think of the years I lived at the Lone House, a pokin’ and pryin’ round to find the things Logan had most likely buried there, yet never came across anything. But directly Joe Gunnage gets there, and begins to dig for a root-cellar, he turns up a whole lot of things, and instead of keeping quiet about them, he must needs go flying with the whole story to the police, stirring up no end of mud. I’ve had to keep pretty quiet ever since, I can tell you, though there wasn’t a shred of evidence against me, and I was as innercent as a babe about them things, for if I had known where they were I should have dug them up and sold them a long time ago.”
Nell shivered, and, leaning closer, said gently, “Don’t talk like that, granfer. You are old and feeble now, and perhaps there is not much more life left for you.”
“A good thing too,” he burst in. “I’ve had about enough of it, one way and another, and I’m that tired, it is as much as I can do to lie here without lifting a finger.”
“Poor granfer!” she murmured, and a mist of tears came into her eyes as she realized how little she could do for him.
“Can you give me a little money, Nell?” he asked presently, with the whine coming into his voice again.
She shook her head. “I will see that you don’t want for food, and I’ll send a doctor to you; but I haven’t much money to spare, granfer.”
“Well, you’ll come again and see me, won’t you? Real interesting it has been, having you drop in for a chat to-day. Fred said he’d send Joe down to a food-shop as there was at Camp’s Gulch, just to get me a bit of something tasty, but I hadn’t no idea as you were there still, and would come to see me.”
“I must go now. I’ve been here such a long while, and I have got to walk back, but I will come again to-morrow or the day after, if I can,” she said, wondering how she would manage to find her way home unaided.
“I gave you good advice, Nell, when I told you to get over the border,” he said, with a feeble laugh, when she bade him good-bye. “I’ve always tried to do my duty by you, and I should have sent you some money if I hadn’t wanted it myself.”