“Humph!” commented Mr. Barrington. “I never saw a little money make such a dam fool of a man as it has of Hemenway!”
Ethel’s lips parted, then closed with sudden determination. Twelve hours later she left for Dalton without mentioning to her father her experience of the day before, and within a week she had sailed from New York on a steamer bound for Liverpool.
X
The discovery of gold had made all the miners at Skinner Valley restless, and Hustler Joe was among the first to take his wages and start for the promised bonanza.
Hustler Joe of the coal mines was still “Hustler Joe” of the gold mines. The same ceaseless, untiring energy spurred the man on to constant labor. The claim he staked out proved to be the richest in the place and wealth sought him out and knocked at his cabin door.
Strange to say, Hustler Joe was surprised. He had come to the mines simply because they promised excitement and change. He had thought, too, that possibly they harbored the peace and forgetfulness for which he so longed.
But peace had fled at his approach and wealth had come unasked. Man-like, he regarded the unsought with indifference and gazed only at the unattainable; whereupon wealth rustled her golden garments to charm his ears and flashed her bright beauty to dazzle his eyes. Still failing to win his heart, she whispered that she—even she—was peace in disguise, and that he had but to embrace her to find what he sought.
It was then that Hustler Joe yielded. In a year he had sold half his claim for a fabulous sum. The other half he retained, and leaving it to be developed under the charge of expert engineers, he left for Skinner Valley.
Hustler Joe had never forgotten the little hunchback pedler, nor the debt of gratitude he owed him. Many a time in the old days at the coal mines he had tried to pay this debt, but always, in his own estimation, he had failed. So it was of Pedler Jim that he first thought when this new power of wealth came into his hands.
The news of Hustler Joe’s good luck had not reached Skinner Valley, and the man was in the same rough miner’s garb when he pushed open the familiar door of the “Emporium” in search of Pedler Jim.