Phil nodded his head. Sam continued: “I say, Phil, is Mollie Branscome your sweetheart, that you named your claim after her?”
Phil colored painfully, but after a minute he replied dryly: “It must be information you’re seekin’; I wasn’t aware that it concerned anyone but myself.”
Sam laughed sneeringly.
“Awful close with your little romance!”
To Phil it was a romance; and in giving the name to his claim he but obeyed the impulse to have it ever on his lips. “Mollie,” his manner of speaking it was ever a caress.
Sam laughed, and passed the remark off as a joke.
One day Sam brought Phil a letter from his old father, asking him to come home, as he was very ill and wished to see him once more before he died. Phil turned the letter over thoughtfully, and Sam hastened to say: “I tried to get on to the horse, and he jumped sideways and dumped the whole pile of mail into the dirt; it’s an awful mess, but I couldn’t help it,” apologetically.
“Oh ’t wasn’t that! but the old man’s writing don’t look natural. I am afraid he is pretty bad.” He pulled his mustache thoughtfully for a few minutes.
“I don’t just see how I can manage it. I have just about money enough to get there, but none to return,” said he.
Sam leaned back in his chair, blowing a long cloud of smoke meditatively. Finally he said: “I had an offer for the Little Darling this morning; you go, if you want to, and I’ll make the deal, and send you a fifty; you can pay it after you come back.”