Percival was being forced to cheerfulness in spite of himself.
"Come, it isn't as bad as that, Uncle Peter. We've got properties left, and good ones, too."
Uncle Peter weakly waved the hand of finished discouragement. "Hush, don't speak of that. Them properties need a manager to make 'em pay—a plain business man—a man to stay on the ground and watch 'em and develop 'em with his brains—a young man with his health! What good am I—a poor, broken-down old cuss, bent double with rheumatiz—almost—I'm ashamed of you fur suggesting such a thing!"
"I'll do it myself—I never thought of asking you."
Uncle Peter emitted a nasal gasp of disgust.
"You—you—you'd make a purty manager of anything, wouldn't you! As if you could be trusted with anything again that needs a schoolboy's intelligence. Even if you had the brains, you ain't got the taste nor the sperrit in you. You're too lazy—too triflin'. You, a-goin' back there, developin' mines, and gettin' out ties, and lumber, and breeding shorthorns, and improvin' some of the finest land God ever made—you bein' sober and industrious, and smart, like a business man has got to be out there nowadays. That ain't any bonanza country any more; 1901 ain't like 1870; don't figure on that. You got to work the low-grade ore now for a few dollars a ton, and you got to work it with brains. No, sir, that country ain't what it used to be. There might 'a' been a time when you'd made your board and clothes out there when things come easier. Now it's full of men that hustle and keep their mind on their work, and ain't runnin' off to pink teas in New York. It takes a man with some of the brains your pa had to make the game pay now. But you—don't let me hear any more of that nonsense!"
Percival had entered the room pale. He was now red. The old man's bitter contempt had flushed him into momentary forgetfulness of the disaster.
"Look here, Uncle Peter, you've been telling me right along I did have my father's head and my father's ways and his nerve, and God knows what I didn't have that he had!"
"I was fooled,—I can't deny it. What's the use of tryin' to crawl out of it? You did fool me, and I own up to it; I thought you had some sense, some capacity; but you was only like him on the surface; you jest got one or two little ways like his, that's all—Dan'l J. now was good stuff all the way through. He might 'a' guessed wrong on copper, but he'd 'a' saved a get-away stake or borrowed one, and he'd 'a' piked back fur Montana to make his pile right over—and he'd 'a' made it, too—that was the kind of man your pa was—he'd 'a' made it!"
"I have saved a get-away stake."