"Frank," said the letter, "Lawton is a dead one. Nuthing in it for boys except rattles and guns and pink silk shirts and stick pins. But your dad wouldnt let you have the pins and your mothers wouldn't see you found dead in them shirts, and the pins was sort of advansed, so I want you to spend this money on something you like when you get to whatever it is.
"Just a present from your friend
"Lee."
"P. S. Say, Frank, lets take a fresh start me and you. I wouldnt believe you would lie or steal even if some do do such. So you must take it from me that a good indian is a good indian just as a good white man is good.
"So that all we want to bother about that.
"Your true friend
"Lee."
"Well, this beats all!" said Bill, handing back the letter. "Isn't Lee the peach though? I wish I was sure Mom would let me keep this. Isn't it great—all new fives! I suppose he thought it would be handy that way for us to spend."
"What does he mean about not believing that I lie or steal?" said Frank, scowling.
"Why, just what he says, you nut!" exclaimed Bill. "Can't you read? He means he knows you wouldn't do anything wrong, and so you must believe in him. I bet he has overheard some of the things you have said about him. Anyhow, it is just as he says. You must keep his present, and make a new start. He wants to be good friends with you and wants you to like him. And I should say he deserves it."
Frank said very little about the present but Bill didn't notice. He was too busy voicing his own surprise and gratitude. Before he finally slid down into his own berth he had spent the crisp new fives twenty times over. He thought he was too excited to sleep, but after he had pinned the present back in his coat pocket, and had carefully laid himself down on that side, and tied all the curtains shut, and balanced his suitcase on end at the front of the berth so a possible robber would tip it over on him, he was asleep in two seconds. It would have worked all right at that, only by-and-by in the middle of a dream where Bill was batter in a baseball nine that used ice-cream cones instead of balls, the train went around a curve and over came the suitcase. Bill was awake in a second, and for a moment had a hand-to-hand fight with the curtains before he realized what had happened. With a laugh he felt for his precious pocket, and slept again.
But in the upper berth Frank Anderson had tossed Lee's friendly letter and the packet of bills down to the end of the berth as though they were worthless. He was only a boy and should have slept but all night long he lay and stared at the little electric bulb burning dimly over his head. He lay and thought; and his thoughts burned like fire.