Eva was lost to him forever. Nothing else mattered much.
On the one hand had stood home, kindred, wealth—for the Ludingtons had struck oil, too, and were fast getting rich—but he had been willing to sacrifice them all for the little dark-eyed girl on the other side.
Fate had snatched her away, and given him back what he had forsaken. A telegram went flying to his father confessing all; then he started with the officers on a journey to Clarksburg that was to end in prison instead of bridal happiness.
CHAPTER XXII.
DOCTOR ST. CLAIR’S CLUE.
It was the oil excitement that took Doctor St. Clair up into Harrison County. He hoped to buy or lease some land in the famous oil belt.
The ferryman at whose shanty Doctor Ludington had stayed, after his lucky escape from death, owned fifteen sterile acres quite near to Fernside and Stony Ledge, but he refused Doctor St. Clair’s offer of two thousand dollars down pointblank.
“I ain’t as green as I look, stranger,” he said brusquely. “Why, a man that stayed with me a while last fall, and knowed the right vally of all that land, told me whatever I done, never to sell for less than ten thousand dollars!”
“Who was the man?” demanded the doctor, with an inward anathema against the intermeddler.
“Friend o’ mine,” briefly.