"You look after him until I return," and he motioned towards Dad. "I brought down a sheep this morning, but left its carcass up the valley in order to bring in the old man."
"Let me go," Tom hastened to reply. "It isn't fair that you should do all the work."
"No, thank you, I shall go myself. You wouldn't know where to find it." With that he was off, leaving Tom much puzzled over his peculiar manner.
The prospector seated himself upon a stool, and deliberately filled his pipe. When it was lighted and drawing to his satisfaction, he turned toward Nance, who was putting away the dishes she had just wiped.
"Yer father seems worried over something," he began. "I wonder what is the matter."
Nance paused in her work and looked intently upon the old prospector's honest, rugged face. She, too, had noticed Martin's strange behaviour of late, and she longed to unburden her mind to some one. She felt that in Tom she would have a sympathetic listener, and that he would keep her confidence as a sacred trust. She, accordingly, left her work and sat down upon a bench at the side of the table.
"My father," she began, "has only acted in this strange manner since you arrived. He was never like that before. Did you notice how he left so suddenly last night, and when he came back he didn't talk at all?"
"I did; I certainly did, Miss," Tom assented. "Some words which my pardner let drop seemed to upset 'im completely. I wonder—I wonder," he mused, half to himself, "if he is afraid of Dick. It may be that. He's mighty taken with you, Miss, is Dick, an' it might be that yer father fears that he'll lose ye."
A flush suffused Nance's cheeks, and her eyes dropped. Was this, then, the reason of her father's strange actions? she asked herself.
"When d'ye expect to leave, Miss?" Tom suddenly queried.