"JUAN DICAMPA."
"Such a strangely boyish letter to come from a bloodthirsty bandit—for such they say he is. And he is father's friend," sighed Janice, showing the letter to Nelson Saley. "Oh, dear! I wish daddy would leave that hateful old mine and come home."
Nevertheless, daddy's return—or his abandonment of the mine—did not appear imminent. Good news indeed was in Mr. Broxton Day's most recent letters. The way to the border for ore trains was again open. For six weeks he had had a large force of peons at work in the mine and a great amount of ore had been shipped.
There was in the letter a certificate of deposit for several hundred dollars, and the promise of more in the near future.
"You must be pretty short of feminine furbelows by this time. Be good to yourself, Janice," wrote Mr. Day.
But his daughter, though possessing her share of feminine vanity in dress, saw first another use for a part of this unexpected windfall. She said nothing to a soul but Walky Dexter, however. It was to be a secret between them.
There was so much going on in Polktown just then that Walky could keep a secret, as he confessed himself, "without half trying."
"Nelson Haley openin' aour school and takin' up the good work ag'in where he laid it daown, is suthin' that oughter be noted a-plenty," declared Mr. Dexter. "And I will say for 'em, that committee reinstated him before anybody heard anythin' abeout Jack Besmith havin' stole the gold coins.
"Sure enough!" went on Walky, "that's another thing that kin honestly be laid to Lem Parraday's openin' that bar at the Inn. That's where Jack got the liquor that twisted his brain, that led him astray, that made him a thief—— Jefers-pelters! sounds jest like 'The Haouse That Jack Built,' don't it? But poor Jack Besmith has sartainly built him a purty poor haouse. And there's steel bars at the winders of it—poor feller!"
However, it was Nelson Haley himself who used the story of Jack Besmith most tellingly, and for the cause of temperance. As the young fellow had owned to the crime when taxed with it, and had returned most of the coins of the collection, he was recommended to the mercy of the court. But all of Polktown knew of the lad's shame.