“Is there more?” asked Tom, eagerly. “I will go to work to-morrow.”
“You don’t ask who this belongs to,” said Peter Brush, rather ungrammatically.
“To you and the doctor, of course.”
“And to you.”
“But I didn’t gather any of it,” said Tom.
“It makes no difference,” said Brush. “The firm was Spooner, Brush & Thatcher, and a third of it belongs to you as junior partner. Tom, you are worth two thousand dollars.”
“But I can’t take it, Mr. Brush,” cried Tom. “I can’t accept your great kindness. I had no hand in collecting this gold.”
“Because you were with the Indians when we left you.”
“You couldn’t help it.”
“But we saved our own lives by leaving you there. You had the worst of it. Do you want to make us ashamed of deserting you?”