some shot. He buried Jacob under the cabin floor."
"I still run the ferry," Frederick went on, "though there isn't so much
travel as in the old days. I freight by wagon-road to the Reservation,
and then mule-back on up the Klamath and clear in to the forks of Little
Salmon. I have twelve stores on that chain now, a stage-line to the
Reservation, and a hotel there. Quite a tourist trade is beginning to
pick up."
And the girl, with curious brooding eyes, looked from brother to brother
as they so differently voiced themselves and life.
"Ay, he was some man, father was," Tom murmured.
There was a drowsy note in his speech that drew a quick glance of
anxiety from her. The machine had turned into the cemetery, and now
halted before a substantial vault on the crest of the hill.
"I thought you'd like to see it," Frederick was saying. "I built that
mausoleum myself, most of it with my own hands. Mother wanted it. The
estate was dreadfully encumbered. The best bid I could get out of the
contractors was eleven thousand. I did it myself for a little over
eight."
"Must have worked nights," Tom murmured admiringly and more sleepily
than before.
"I did, Tom, I did. Many a night by lantern-light. I was so busy. I was
reconstructing the water works then--the artesian wells had failed--and
mother's eyes were troubling her. You remember--cataract--I wrote you.
She was too weak to travel, and I brought the specialists up from San
Francisco. Oh, my hands were full. I was just winding up the disastrous
affairs of the steamer line father had established to San Francisco, and
I was keeping up the interest on mortgages to the tune of one hundred
and eighty thousand dollars."
A soft stertorous breathing interrupted him. Tom, chin on chest, was
asleep. Polly, with a significant look, caught her uncle's eye. Then
her father, after an uneasy restless movement, lifted drowsy lids.
"Deuced warm day," he said with a bright apologetic laugh. "I've been
actually asleep. Aren't we near home?"
Frederick nodded to the chauffeur, and the car rolled on.
III
The house that Frederick Travers had built when his prosperity came, was
large and costly, sober and comfortable, and with no more pretence than
was naturally attendant on the finest country home in the county. Its
atmosphere was just the sort that he and his daughter would create. But
in the days that followed his brother's home-coming, all this was
changed. Gone was the sub
|