"I don't want you to think that my uncle is in any way to blame for all this," said Tom, in conclusion. "I wanted money, I wanted to be revenged on Jerry Lamar, and so I took it."
"Of course. You ought to have had better sense, seeing that the money would all be your own some day. Do you know what I think you had better do?"
Tom replied that he did not.
"I think you had better go home, tell your uncle just what you have told me, and abide the consequences."
"You don't know my uncle, or you would not advise any such step as that," said Tom, with a sigh which showed that he knew him, and that he was bound to stick to his course. "I am the only relative he has got in the world, but that won't hinder him from saying every time he gets mad at me: 'So you are the lad that tried to reduce me to poverty by stealing five thousand dollars from me!' He will get all over that when he finds that I am not coming home, and then I will go back to him."
"How long do you think it will take him?"
"About a year, maybe two."
"Do you think you can stand it among all these lawless men for that length of time?"
"I've got to. I don't see any other way out of it."
"And you were going to Texas to get another start? Texas is a country in which all men bring up who have made a failure, and you were bound that way."