"Here are names and dates," answered Mark, with a serious shake of his head. "If the reports are false, I don't see how they got those."
"Even if the reports are true, I don't think I'd care to go away out to California for the gold," resumed Carl, who was a bit of a coward. "Why, it's three thousand miles from Philadelphia, and you'd have to either go out on horseback most of the way, or take a steamer or a sailboat to the Isthmus of Panama and then up the gold coast, or else go clear around Cape Horn! You don't catch me making such a trip as that!"
"It would just suit me," cried Mark, enthusiastically. "I'd take a trip to the moon if I could get there. I'd like the sport——"
"Never mind taking a trip to the moon, young man!" broke in a harsh voice at Mark's back. "Just get to work and leave California alone. Have you finished that copying I gave you yesterday?"
"Not yet, Mr. Powers," answered Mark. "But I'll have it done in half an hour."
"Good-by, Mark," came from Carl Felmore, and he slipped out of the office without another word.
"I don't want that Felmore boy hanging around here," cried Jadell Powers, wrathfully. "After this he must keep away."
"He brought over some legal papers for Cross & Barwick," answered Mark, quietly. He saw that his step-father was not in an agreeable frame of mind.
"Oh! Well, he needn't hang around, even so," grumbled Jadell Powers, but in a more subdued tone of voice. "Hurry up with those papers. I must get to court by ten o'clock and it's now half-past nine."
"I'll hurry all I can," answered Mark.