"Living in the country. I went up to see him two or three weeks since."
"How's he fixed? Did he hang on to his pile?"
"He's hanging on to it now," answered Lyman, with an oath. "He made out he was poor, and sent me off with a beggarly five-dollar note."
"Perhaps he's lost his money."
"More likely he's keeping it out of the way. He ought to give me half he made out of the claim."
"I don't know about that, stranger. You gave up and left, and all he made afterwards, went of right to him."
Lyman Taylor, however, did not regard the matter in that light. Discreetly losing sight of the circumstances under which he left his uncle, carrying off all the gold dust he had then accumulated, he persuaded himself that he had suffered a great wrong in not having shared in the subsequent rich development.
"Just my luck!" he said to himself, moodily.
"If I'd only waited a couple of months I'd have left California a rich man. How was I to guess how the claim was going to pan out. I didn't think Uncle Anthony would have treated me so meanly. I wonder how much he's got left?"
This was an interesting subject of consideration, but unfortunately, Lyman had no data to go upon; or, rather, what data he had, were not calculated to favor the presumption that his uncle was a rich man.