ed to worry through. After he got so that he could talk he had
sense enough to remember that his name was the same as his father's,
Elam Storm, and that was everything he did know. He couldn't tell the
first thing about the soldiers who composed the escort, or whether the
men who made the attack were whites or Injuns, or what went with the
money; and the worst of it was when he grew older none of these things
didn't come into his mind, like we hoped and believed they would.

"Seeing that the little waif was friendless and alone, and none of us
didn't know whether he had kith or kin in the world, I offered to take
him and bring him up as if he were my own son, and the rest of the boys
they agreed to it. Although he has always been known around these
diggin's as 'Ezra Norton's kid,' he aint no more relation to me than you
be, and no more use neither, I might say, so far as helping on the ranch
is concerned. He always was a shiftless sort of chap, and liked best to
get away by himself and 'mope,' as I called it, though I believe now
that he was doing a power of thinking, and trying to remember who he
was, where he had once lived, and what happened to him before the train
was lost. I wasn't much surprised when he took to wolfing as a means of
getting his grub and clothes, for that solitary business just suited his
solitary disposition; but I was teetotally dumfoundered and mad, too,
when he told me that his father was alive, and that he would some day
find him and his big nugget together. Mind you, he didn't say this as
though he hoped and believed it might be true, but as positive as though
he knew it was true."

"Where do you suppose they--I mean his father and the nugget--are now?"
asked Ben.

"Pshaw! His father is dead long ago," replied Uncle Ezra, in a very
decided tone. "Leastwise the men who went with the wagons are dead, and
so old Elam must be dead, too. Don't stand to reason that only one man
out of the whole outfit should turn up alive, does it? These things
happened thirteen year ago, and Elam is nigh about twenty now, I should
say. As for his nugget--well, I don't know what to think about that.
When I first come to this country, there was a nugget of that
description in existence, which had been dug up somewhere in those very
mountains, and the finding of it created a rush that reminded old timers
of California and Deadwood. I jined in with the rest, but never dug out
more than enough to pay my expenses; and