'See there,' pointing to the corner.
'T.E.U. Edgar's copy! Is he found?'
'Thank God! There is hope that the lost is found!' He rested his head against Clement, heaving a mighty irrepressible sob, physically painful, but full of relief. Those two had become inexpressibly much to one another during these four years, and far more during the last six weeks.
'From Travis?' asked Clement presently, observing the handwriting of the letter on the table.
'Yes, good faithful fellow! Would you read it to me, Clem? I cannot get on;' and he cleared his eyes of the blinding tears. 'I could only see that there was hope at the last.'
'Of finding him?'
'Not here. No. He begins by telling us the dear fellow is dead. I think it was something violent, and that he tried in vain to save him. Let me hear, that we may see whether there be anything we can spare Cherry.'
Clement thought Felix even less fit for any shock or agitation than his sister, but he could only make him lie back on his couch, whence he watched with earnest eyes for every word.
The narrative is, however, here given more fully than it could be written, especially as one portion of the history was reserved for Marilda alone.
Ferdinand Travis had inherited a considerable claim to mining property in the south-eastern portion of California. He had gone to America, intending to dispose of it, but had ended by settling down there, naming it Underwood, and doing his best to exert an influence for good on the lawless races he found around him. He had enough in common with them to obtain a partial success where another would have failed; his little township was thriving, and to some degree civilized, and he had even been able to obtain the building of a church and residence of a clergyman with a kind of mission to the Indians. All around him was safe and peaceable; but between him and the nearest cities on the Pacific lay a tract subject to the forays of a tribe in the tiger stage that precedes the abject decline of the unhappy red-skins. The district was gradually becoming settled, but neither village nor traveller was secure from horrible raids and savage massacres, and save by letter-carriers, who trusted to speed, the region was seldom traversed except by parties numerous enough to protect themselves.