Dick would have argued the point with her; was, in fact, beginning the counter-protest, when Myra stopped him.'
"Of course we'll stay," she assented. "You go with Connie and help make the tea, Dick. I haven't begun to have a visit with Uncle Stephen yet."
Bartrow gave up the fight and was led captive of the small one to the room across the corridor which served as a kitchen. Left alone with his sister's daughter, Stephen Elliott had a sudden return of the haltingnesses which the Philadelphia niece, newly arrived, used to inspire; but Myra asked only for an acquiescent listener.
"Uncle Stephen," she began, pinning him in the lounge-corner from which there was no possibility of escape, "I've been wanting to get at you all day, and I was afraid you weren't going to give me a chance. You have 'grub-staked' a lot of people, first and last, haven't you?"
The old man eyed her suspiciously for a moment, and then evidently banished the suspicion as a thing unworthy.
"Why, yes; I have staked a good few of them, first and last, as you say."
"I knew it, and I wanted to ask a question. How much money did you usually give them?"
The suspicion was well lulled by this; and finding himself upon familiar ground, the pioneer went into details.
"That depended a good deal upon the other fellow. Some of them—most of 'em, I was going to say—couldn't be trusted with money at all, and I'd go buy them an outfit and stay with them till they got out o' range of the saloons and green tables."