"Dear Luke," the letter commenced, "it seems a long time since I have seen you, and I can truly say that I miss you more than I would any other boy in Groveton. I wonder where you are—your mother does not seem to know. She only knows you are traveling for Mr. Reed.
"There is not much news. Groveton, you know, is a quiet place. I see Randolph every day. He seems very curious to know where you are. I think he is disturbed because you have found employment elsewhere. He professes to think that you are selling newspapers in New York, or tending a peanut stand, adding kindly that it is all you are fit for. I have heard a rumor that he was often to be seen playing billiards at Tony Denton's, but I don't know whether it is true. I sometimes think it would do him good to become a poor boy and have to work for a living.
"We are going to Orchard Beach next summer, as usual, and in the fall mamma may take me to Europe to stay a year to learn the French language. Won't that be fine? I wish you could go with me, but I am afraid you can't sell papers or peanuts enough—which is it?—to pay expenses. How long are you going to be away? I shall be glad to see you back, and so will Florence Grant, and all your other friends, of whom you have many in Groveton. Write soon to your affectionate friend,
"LINTON."
This letter quite cheered up Luke, who, in his first absence from home, naturally felt a little lonely at times.
"Linny is a true friend," he said. "He is just as well off as Randolph, but never puts on airs. He is as popular as Randolph is unpopular. I wish I could go to Europe with him."
Upon the earlier portions of Luke's journey to the Black Hills we need not dwell. The last hundred or hundred and fifty miles had to be traversed in a stage, and this form of traveling Luke found wearisome, yet not without interest. There was a spice of danger, too, which added excitement, if not pleasure, to the trip. The Black Hills stage had on more than one occasion been stopped by highwaymen and the passengers robbed.
The thought that this might happen proved a source of nervous alarm to some, of excitement to others.
Luke's fellow passengers included a large, portly man, a merchant from some Western city; a clergyman with a white necktie, who was sent out by some missionary society to start a church at the Black Hills; two or three laboring men, of farmerlike appearance, who were probably intending to work in the mines; one or two others, who could not be classified, and a genuine dude, as far as appearance went, a slender-waisted, soft-voiced young man, dressed in the latest style, who spoke with a slight lisp. He hailed from the city of New York, and called himself Mortimer Plantagenet Sprague. As next to himself, Luke was the youngest passenger aboard the stage, and sat beside him, the two became quite intimate. In spite of his affected manners and somewhat feminine deportment, Luke got the idea that Mr. Sprague was not wholly destitute of manly traits, if occasion should call for their display.
One day, as they were making three miles an hour over a poor road, the conversation fell upon stage robbers.