“It’s perfectly natural he should drift back to Sobrante, even with all the opprobrium that would attach to him there. It is his home. He believed or pretended to believe, that it was also his birthright. He knows nothing that would bring him a livelihood in the city–––”
“Except gambling,” interrupted Ephraim, contemptuously.
“If he tried his hand at that even, he’d fail. He hasn’t the head to plot deeply. His maneuvers are all childishly transparent, and this last one––h’m! Have you connected his ‘highness’ with this spook business?”
“No, sir; and you needn’t. That Antonio Bernal is the biggest coward above ground. Why, bless me! even if he’d had gumption enough to concoct 155 such a scheme he wouldn’t have the nerve to carry it out. He’d be afraid of himself! Fact! No, siree. Top-lofty never had a hand in this,” answered the elder man.
Ninian said no more but kept his suspicions revolving in his own mind; yet was far more absorbed in the possibility that “Forty-niner” had suggested, of the copper vein in the canyon, than by anything else he had heard. They had ridden on again, each silent, till the lights of Sobrante came into view; then Ephraim remarked:
“Reckon the little tackers ain’t much better. The mistress don’t gen’ally keep lamps lit as late as this, ’less something’s wrong. Oh! I hope there’s no more death and disappointment on our road. ’Twould break Mrs. Trent’s heart, indeed, if she lost Ned.”
Ninian roused himself from his reverie, and answered, lightly:
“For such a cheerful fellow as I remember you, even when you were first laid up in hospital, you’re degenerated sadly. What in the name of common sense is the use of prognosticating evil, when good is just as likely to come?”
“Huh! I’m consid’able older than you, young man,” retorted the sharpshooter, perversely.
“All the more reason you should be more hopeful. What’s happened to you besides these external troubles? Something on your own account, eh? If so, believe me you have my hearty sympathy and my right hand to help you, if you need it.”