“Some men are lucky, that’s a fact. Ten thousand dollars, and he’s only just turned thirty. Well, I wish I were in his shoes.”
“I mean to go to California some time.”
“But how will you go? It costs money to go so far.”
“That’s true, and I don’t know where the money is coming from, but I mean to get there all the same.”
“If you had the money Seth Tarbox wouldn’t let you use it for that.”
“I’d like to see him stop me!” said Grant, nodding his head with emphasis.
“Well, I wish you luck, Grant, but I reckon it’ll be a good many years before you get to California.”
Privately Grant was of the same opinion, but the idea had entered his mind, and was not likely to be dislodged.
There were two ways of going home, one through the village, the same way he came, and the other across the railroad and over the fields. This was no shorter, but there was a variety in it, and Grant decided that he should take it.
A hundred feet from the place where he crossed the railroad there was a bridge spanning the creek, not wide, but lying some twenty feet below. The bridge was about fifty feet long.