“Did you lose it?”
Tom nodded his head, and resumed his walk.
“How did it happen?”
“Why, I was fool enough to buck the tiger down in Denver, if you must know,” answered Tom snappishly. “I wanted to increase my capital, and the consequence was I lost it all.”
“You don’t mean to say that you gambled it away?” Oscar almost gasped.
“Well, that’s about the plain English of it,” was the careless reply.
“O Tom!” exclaimed Oscar. “What do you suppose mother would say if she knew it?”
“I don’t intend that she shall know it, and she never will unless you get to swinging that long tongue of yours. It was my intention to shut myself out so completely from the world that nobody in Eaton would ever hear of me again; and I should have succeeded if some evil genius had not sent you prowling through this ravine. What brought you here, anyway? I tell you again that I can’t take care of you, and I won’t, either! By the way, for how much did you get into old Smith?”
It was plain enough to be seen that Tom, in his endeavors to account for his brother’s unexpected presence in that country, was shooting wide of the mark. He readily believed that Oscar, like himself, had stolen money from his employers and fled from Eaton in order to escape punishment at the hands of the law.
He could not think of anything else that would be likely to bring Oscar so far away from home.