so lonesome that I would have welcomed a
stray dog, and that is pretty nearly what I was doing.

"I guess," ventured the old man, after we had finished our dinner, "that
you are wondering where we're goin', Jake."

"A long ways," I said, "by the looks of your rig."

"You see us now," he went on, "takin' steps that I've wanted to take
ever sen' I found out what a den of inikerty we throwed ourselves into
when we went out yon'," pointing in the general direction of the
Blue-grass Manor.

"What steps are you takin'?" I asked.

"We are makin'," said he, "our big move for riches. Gold! Gold! Jake,
you must go with us! We are goin' out to the Speak."

I had never heard of any place called the Speak, but I finally got it
through my head that he meant Pike's Peak. We were in the midst of the
Pike's Peak excitement for two or three years; and this was the earliest
sign of it that I had seen, though I had heard Pike's Peak mentioned.

"Jake," said Old Man Fewkes, "it's a richer spot than the Arabian
Knights ever discovered. The streams are rollin' gold sand. Come along
of us to the Speak, an' we'll make you rich. Eh, ma?"

"I have been drailed around," said ma, as she saw me looking at her,
"about as much as I expect to be; but this is like goin' home. It's the
last move; and as pa has said ag'in an' ag'in, it ain't but six or eight
hundred mile from Omaha, an' with the team an' wagin we've got, that's
nothin' if we find the gold, an' I calculate there ain't no doubt of
that. The Speak looks like the best place we ever started fur, and we
all hope you'll leave this Land o' Desolation, an' come with us. We like
you, an' we want you to be rich with us."

"Where's Rowena?" I asked.

Silence for quite a while. Then Ma Fewkes spoke.

"Rowena," she said, her voice trembling, "Rowena ain't goin' with us."

"Why," I said, "last summer, she seemed to want to start for Texas. She
ain't goin' with you? I want to know!"

"She ain't no longer," said Old Man Fewkes, "a member o' my family. I
shall will my proputty away from her. I've made up my mind, Jake: an'
now le's talk about the Speak. Our plans was never better laid.
Celebrate, tell Jake how we make our money a-goin', and you, Surrager,
denote to him your machine f'r gittin' out the gold."

I was too absorbed in thinking about Rowena to take in what Surajah and
Celebrate said. I have a dim recollection that Celebrate's plan for
making money was to fill the wagon box with