"Do you
remember the date?"
"'Twas a Friday, 'bout the middle o' September."
Trove turned, looking up at the brazen dial of the tall clock. It
indicated four-thirty in the morning of September 19th.
"Were there any with him when he died?"
"Yes, the tavern keeper--it was some kind of a stroke they told me."
"And your boss--did he go to California?" Trove asked.
"He sold the farm an' went to Californy. I worked there a while,
but the boss an' me couldn't agree, an' so I pulled up an' trotted
fer home."
"To what part of California did Thompson go?"
"Hadn't no idee where he would stick his stakes. He was goin' in
t' the gold business."
Trove sat busy with his own thoughts while Thurston Tilly, warming
to new confidence, boiled over with enthusiasm for the far west. A
school friend of the boy came, by and by, whereupon Tilly whistled
on his thumb and hurried away.
"Did you know," said the newcomer, when Trove and he were alone,
"that Roberts--the man who tried to send you up--is a young lawyer
and is going to settle here? He and Polly are engaged."
"Engaged!"
"So he gave me to understand."
"Well, if she loves him and he's a good fellow, I 've no right to
complain," Trove answered.
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