“No doubt, but your ideas will grow. You will understand now why I venture to take a room at a fashionable hotel.”
“And now it is time to tell you my object in sending for you.”
“I wish he would make me his private secretary,” thought Tom.
“It was to reveal to you a secret which you ought to know—the secret of the hold I have upon John Simpson. Since he made that atrocious attempt upon my life I owe him no consideration. I do not require his help, and I declare myself his bitter foe. I forsake him, and I devote myself to you.”
He spoke with energy, and Tom listened in surprise and bewilderment. He was not sure of Mr. Darke’s sanity.
CHAPTER XV.
THE TRAGEDY AT ROCKY GULCH.
“IT IS now between eight and nine years ago,” said Darius Darke, deliberately, “that I found myself at a mining district in California, then known as Rocky Gulch. With me was a man named James Gibbon. We had brought some money to California, and had greatly increased it by lucky investments in San Francisco. We were well fixed, but expected to increase our wealth in mining.”
“At Rocky Gulch we found several men at work, but the richest claims belonged to John Simpson and Robert Thatcher.”