g or two that might turn up agin me--and fellows as 'ud do me a bad
turn if they come across me--dudes, as I used to know in Dawson City. I
shan't stay in Canada. You can make up your mind to that. Besides, the
winter'ud kill me!"

Anderson accordingly proposed San Francisco, or Los Angeles. Would his
father go for a time to a Salvation Army colony near Los Angeles?
Anderson knew the chief officials--capital men, with no cant about them.
Fruit farming--a beautiful climate--care in sickness--no drink--as much
work or as little as he liked--and all expenses paid.

McEwen laughed out--a short sharp laugh--at the mention of the Salvation
Army. But he listened patiently, and at the end even professed to think
there might be something in it. As to his own scheme, he dropped all
mention of it. Yet Anderson was under no illusion; there it lay
sparkling, as it were, at the back of his sly wolfish eyes.

"How in blazes could you take me down?" muttered McEwen--"Thought you
was took up with these English swells."

"I'm not taken up with anything that would prevent my looking after
you," said Anderson rising. "You let Mrs. Ginnell attend to you--get the
leg well--and we'll see."

McEwen eyed him--his good looks and his dress, his gentleman's
refinement; and the shaggy white brows of the old miner drew
closer together.

"What did you cast me off like that for, George?" he asked.

Anderson turned away.

"Don't rake up the past. Better not."

"Where are my other sons, George?"

"In Montreal, doing well." Anderson gave the details of their
appointments and salaries.

"And never a thought of their old father, I'll be bound!" said McEwen,
at the end, with slow vindictiveness.

"You forget that it was your own doing; we believed you dead."

"Aye!--you hadn't left a man much to come home for!--and all for an
accident!--a thing as might ha' happened to any man."

The speaker's voice had grown louder. He stared sombrely, defiantly at
his companion.

Anderson stood with his hands on his sides, looking through the further
window. Then slowly he put his hand into his pocket and withdrew from it
a large pocket-book. Out of the pocket-book he took a delicately made
leather case, holding it in his hand a moment, and glancing uncertainly
at the figure in the bed.

"What ha' you got there?" growled McEwen.

Anderson crossed the room. His own face had lost its colour. As he
reached his father, he touched a spring, and held out h