"Barton is coming this way tomorrow and we can get him to bring us some things we need from the States. He'll be back next week."
"Good," replied Marshall. "I will also give him a few letters I want mailed."
Tom turned to the writing of his letters. One was to his cousin. He wrote a short note to Mary Lee thanking her for her letter which he received at El Paso. He spoke of his partner and of the bare possibility of finding silver in plenty at the mine.
The Indian smoked his pipe while his partner was writing, watching him with a feeling of contentment. He had been very lonesome for him. He was of the type that become strongly attached to people and the acquaintance of this man now so busily writing was the second of his great friendships. Now his mind wandered a little back to the time, more than twelve years before, when he had had other friends.
He was brought back to the present with a start.
"Here is that little girl that did so much for me," Marshall, unaware of the flow of his friend's thoughts, interrupted, as he handed the envelope and letter to him.
The man looked at the envelope with passing interest. But even as he looked, a strange thrill came over him. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Were his eyes playing tricks with his wandering thoughts? He rubbed them again. Then he turned to his partner who was watching him curiously.
What was this miracle that brought the past back to him? Surely it was naught but a trick, a coincidence!
To Tom Marshall, watching him with increasing interest, the Indian turned questioningly, and even as he turned there suddenly came to the white man similarity of names, for his partner was named Jim Lee. Yet, surely the girl was not Indian.
Jim Lee's emotion brought his words back to the beauty of Indian phrasing.