“How many of them?”
“I don’t know. Three or four, I guess.”
It was evident that Lucy was quite indifferent to the fate of the unlucky engineers.
“Mercy on us!” Ellen gasped.
“But their carelessness caused the death of the other men. It was only fair.”
“So that’s the way you settle things in the West?”
“Yes. At least, they did then.”
The mountain-bred girl obviously saw nothing amiss in this swift-footed justice.
“And where did your mother come in?” asked her aunt.
“Why, you see, Grandfather Duquesne afterward made Dad the boss of the mine, and when Mother, a girl of sixteen, came home from the California convent, where she had been at school, she saw him and fell in love with him. Grandfather Duquesne made an awful fuss, but he let her marry him.” 62