“Your home!” cried Rogers, and he gave his wife a glance. “Well, that beats me. Benson—Benson, Ohio—they fit together; you'd hardly believe it, ma'am, that for forty years I been wondering off and on where Benson was. I reckon I could have found out easy enough, but I never did; and I had pretty good reasons for wanting to know, too. Benson, Ohio—that's what he told me,” he mused in silence for a moment, running his fingers through his grizzled beard.
“What do you want to know about Benson?” asked Reddy. “I guess I could have told you.”
“Never heard you mention it, Riley,” said the colonel. “And, well, I reckon you never heard me mention it either, but my folks were Benson folks, too.” He turned to Mrs. Crittendon. “How long did you live in Benson, ma'am?”
“Always, I was born and reared there.”
“Were you though—well, well! I wonder if you ever heard anything of a party that started West from there some time along about '49, as I reckon it?”
“The Landrays went,” said Mrs. Crittendon promptly.
“Landray—that's the name! Landray—I ain't forgotten that. Now, hold on again, there was Landray and his brother, and a man by the name of Walsh, a youngish fellow as I remember him, and an oldish grey-whiskered man named—Bingham.”
“He was my father's cousin,” said Mrs. Crittendon.
“Was he, ma'am? Well, I declare! And there was my father, of course, and myself. I always wished I could meet some one who could tell me something about him.”
“I have always heard it was a Rogers who brought the first news about the finding of gold in California,” said Mrs. Crittendon.