n in a heavy waterproof coat with its collar turned up
over his ears.

As soon as the cart stopped, near the hut, he jumped down and approached
the two men in the doorway.

"Is that the widow McLeish?" he said, pointing to the old woman.

They assured him that he was correct, and he approached her.

"You are Mrs. Margaret McLeish?" said he.

She looked at him in a vague sort of way and nodded. "That's me," said
she. "Is it pay for the cart you're after? If that's it, I must walk."

"Had you a son, Mrs. McLeish?" said the man.

"Ay," said she, and her face brightened a little.

"And what was his name?"

"Andy," was the answer.

"And his calling?"

"A sailorman."

"Well, then," said the traveller in the waterproof, "there is no doubt
that you are the person I came here to see. I was told I should find you
here, and here you are. I may as well tell you at once, Mrs. McLeish,
that your son is dead."

"That is no news," she answered. "I knew that he must be dead."

"But I didn't come here only to tell you that. There is money coming
to you through him--enough to make you comfortable for the rest of
your life."

"Money!" exclaimed the old woman. "To me?"

The two men who had been standing in the doorway of the hut drew near,
and Sawney jumped down from the cart. The announcement made by the
traveller was very interesting.

"Yes," said the man in the waterproof, pulling his collar up a little
higher, for the rain was increasing, "you are to have one hundred and
four pounds a year, Mrs. McLeish, and that's two pounds a week, you know,
and you will have it as long as you live."

"Two pounds a week!" cried the old woman, her eyes shining out of her
weazened old face like two grouse eggs in a nest. "From my Andy?"

"Yes, from your son," said the traveller. And as the rain was now much
more than a drizzle, and as the wind was cold, he made his tale as short
as possible.

He told her that her son had died far away in South America, and, from
what he had gained there, one hundred and four pounds a year would be
coming to her, and that she might rely on this as long as she lived. He
did not state--for he was not acquainted with all the facts--that Shirley
and Burke, when they were in San Francisco hunting up the heirs of the
Castor's crew, had come upon traces of the A. McLeish whose body they had
found in the desert, lying flat on its back, with a bag of gold clasped
to its breast--that they had discovered,