“Mr. Simpson came home rich, didn’t he?”
“Yes. How rich I don’t know, but from being a journeyman he was able to build a manufactory of his own, and has been getting richer ever since.”
“Were he and father together in California?”
“Yes, Tom.”
“And didn’t father find any gold? How could one be prosperous, and the other unlucky?”
“I never could understand it. The very last letter I received from your father mentioned that he was prosperous, and had accumulated a large amount of gold dust, he and John Simpson also. Three months afterward John Simpson came home, but nothing was ever heard of your poor father or his money again.”
“What did Mr. Simpson say? Didn’t he know anything about him?”
“He called on me, and told me that your father and he had separated a little while before leaving California. He made his way to San Francisco while your father remained at the mines. He felt quite sure that your father had been robbed and murdered by some desperate person who had heard of his good fortune.”
“Was that all he could tell you?”
“That was all.”