“Stay a little longer with us, Silas,” she urged; “until you are stronger at any rate. You don’t eat much, and I’m sure, as my only brother, you are welcome to share in what we have. We put our trust in Providence, and so far we have never been forgotten. Something will turn up to help us, sooner or later.”
This showed Leslie Capes what a splendid little woman Dick’s mother was, and deep down in his heart he knew she was right; but all the same he could not get over his firm distrust of the wanderer.
“As sure as anything,” he told himself as he continued to eat, “that was something mighty like a grin I saw workin’ on the old fraud’s face when she said that. It’s a shame, that’s what it is, the way he’s imposing on Dick’s folks. I’m just bound to find him out, so as to expose him for the impostor he is.”
He meant to warn his chum again, though he felt pretty confident the other would only laugh at him, Dick was so frank and unsuspicious himself by nature.
“If I should happen to get real sick, Polly,” he heard the wanderer saying, “I want you to open my bundle, and you’ll find just a little mite of money I’ve hung on to, enough I hope to put me under the ground decently. I’d feel pretty badly if I thought I’d come all the way from Alaska just to make you additional expense in burying me.”
“Don’t speak of it, Silas,” said Mrs. Horner, shaking her head. “You’re going to rest a bit now, and perhaps when you get stronger, there may open up some way for you to earn a little money. We haven’t reached the end of our scanty resources yet, I hope.”
“And my quarterly pension money will be coming along about the first of the year, when we can pay all we owe, and have a bit left over,” said Grandpop Horner, proudly. “Ah! I reckon I earned all Uncle Sam pays me now in my old age, when you remember the terrible sufferings we endured. Many a time I lay on the cold ground in a storm so that my hair was frozen to the soil, and a comrade had to actually chop me loose with a hatchet in the morning.”
The garrulous old veteran was so full of reminiscences, and could be started off so easily, that Dick and his mother always had to be ready to turn the conversation into another channel, once he began to “remember.”
No doubt grandpop found an attentive listener in the returned wanderer, for they had spent many hours smoking together while the housewife carried on her numerous duties.
Leslie had really come over on this occasion to find out when Dick considered the time ripe for springing the great surprise on Deacon Nocker. He was beginning to feel impatient about it, and told Dick as much later on that evening as they sat in the latter’s little room.