The next few years passed as the experience of old Rawson had led him to predict. Fortunes went down; but Fortune's wheel is always turning, and, as the old countryman said, "those that could stick would come up on top again."
Keith, however, had prospered. He had got the Rawson mine to running again, and even in the hardest times had been able to make it pay expenses. Other properties had failed and sold out, and had been bought in by Keith's supporters, when Wickersham once more appeared in New Leeds affairs. It was rumored that Wickersham was going to start again. Old Adam Rawson's face grew dark at the rumor. He said to Keith:
"If that young man comes down here, it's him or me. I'm an old man, and I ain't got long to live; but I want to live to meet him once. If he's got any friends, they'd better tell him not to come." He sat glowering and puffing his pipe morosely.
Keith tried to soothe him; but the old fellow had received a wound that knew no healing.
"I know all you say, and I'm much obliged to you; but I can't accept it. It's an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth with me. He has entered my home and struck me in the dark. Do you think I done all I have done jest for the money I was makin'! No; I wanted revenge. I have set on my porch of a night and seen her wanderin' about in them fureign cities, all alone, trampin' the streets--trampin', trampin', trampin'; tired, and, maybe, sick and hungry, not able to ask them outlandish folks for even a piece of bread--her that used to set on my knee and hug me with her little arms and call me granddad, and claim all the little calves for hers--jest the little ones; and that I've ridden many a mile over the mountains for, thinkin' how she was goin' to run out to meet me when I got home. And now even my old dog's dead--died after she went away.
"No!" he broke out fiercely. "If he comes back here, it's him or me! By the Lord! if he comes back here, I'll pay him the debt I owe him. If she's his wife, I'll make her a widow, and if she ain't, I'll revenge her."
He mopped the beads of sweat that had broken out on his brow, and without a word stalked out of the door.
But Ferdy Wickersham had no idea of returning to New Leeds. He found New York quite interesting enough for him about this time.
The breach between Norman and his wife had grown of late.
Gossip divided the honors between them, and some said it was on Ferdy Wickersham's account; others declared that it was Mrs. Lancaster who had come between them. Yet others said it was a matter of money--that Norman had become tired of his wife's extravagance and had refused to stand it any longer.