Helen obeyed, only then fully understanding. It was a cheque for twelve thousand five hundred dollars, signed by Alan Howard and payable to the order of John Carr. Again she looked at the brief note; it was dated, and the date was eight days old. Her face flushed suddenly; the colour deepened.
'He wrote that the day after I sent my telegram to him!' she cried breathlessly.
'Telegram?'
'Yes.' She hesitated, then ran on swiftly: 'When Mr. Carr left I let him think that maybe father and I would follow soon. I don't know that I had been exactly what you men call square with Mr. Carr. I wanted to be square with everyone. So I sent him a telegram, saying that we appreciated his generosity but that we would stay here.'
Howard studied the date on the fluttering paper and his mind ran back.
'You sent that wire the day after I came back last time!'
'And if I did?' She met his look serenely.
'You did so because you cared——'
But Helen laughed at him, and again Danny, touched with a sudden spur, shot ahead down the trail.
They clattered like runaway children into the crooked rocky street of Sanchia's Town. Had their thoughts been less busied with themselves and with a hint of a rosy future and with the bigness of the thing which John Carr had done for them, they would have marked long ago that here something was amiss. But it was only when they were fairly in the heart of the settlement that they stopped abruptly to stare at each other. Now there was no misunderstanding what had happened! Sanchia's Town, that had been a busy, humming human hive no longer ago than yesterday was this morning still, deserted, empty and dead. Those who had rushed hitherward seeking gold were gone; be the explanation where it might, shacks stood with doors flung wide; tents had been torn down, outworn articles discarded, dumped helter-skelter into the road. The atmosphere was like that of a circus grounds when the circus was moving on, only a few things left for the last crew to come for.