"I am going to stop at the mine on my way to 'Frisco."
"I will give you my address and ask you to write me a line to the care of my banker there, letting me know what you can about the mine."
"All right, boy! I like you, and I'll do it. When do you start?"
"To-morrow."
"We'll start together, and I'll get off the train in Nevada."
CHAPTER XXIX.
NAHUM SPRAGUE AND HIS ORPHAN WARD.
Leaving Mark on his way we will precede him, and carry the reader at once to Gulchville, in California, where he was to find the young boy of whom Mr. Gilbert had requested him to take charge.
In an unpainted frame house lived Mr. Nahum Sprague. In New England such a building would hardly have cost over five hundred dollars, but here it had been erected at more than double the expense by the original owner. When he became out of health and left California it was bought for a trifling price by Nahum Sprague.
The letter was a man of forty-five with small eyes and a face prematurely wrinkled. He was well-to-do, but how he had gained his money no one knew. He and his wife, however, were mean and parsimonious.
They had one son, a boy of fifteen, who resembled them physically and mentally. He was named Oscar, after a gentleman of wealth, in the hope that at his death the boy would be remembered. Unfortunately for Oscar the gentleman died without a will and his namesake received nothing.