hances. Do you remember my boss
tellin' that night in the woods how he lost his money in the fire
o' '35?"

"Yes."

"Wal, I guess it had suthin' t' do with that. One day the boss an'
me was out in the door-yard, an' a stranger come along. 'You're
John Thompson,' says he to the boss; 'An' you're so an' so,' says
the boss. I don't eggzac'ly remember the name he give." Tilly
stopped to think.

"Can you describe him?" Trove inquired.

"He was a big man with white whiskers an' hair, an' he wore light
breeches an' a short, blue coat."

"Again the friend of Darrel," Trove thought.

"Did you tell the tinker about your boss the night we were all at
Robin's Inn last summer?"

"I told him the whole story, an' he pumped me dry. I'd answer him,
an' he'd holler 'Very well,' an' shoot another question at me."

"Well, Thurst, go on with your story."

"Couldn't tell ye jest what happened. They went off int' the
house. Nex' day the boss tol' me he wa'n't no longer a poor man
an' was goin' t' sell his farm an' leave for Californy. In a
tavern near where we lived the stranger died sudden that night, an'
the funeral was at our house, an' he was buried there in Iowy."

Trove walked to the bench and stood a moment looking out of a
window.

"Strange!" said he, returning presently with tearful eyes. "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."

"W