ld fool as to let him take me in. I want to get back
as quickly as possible to make my will again. Ever since Harry put the
idea into my mind I have been fretting about the one I had made leaving
Fred a third of my property. I thought if anything happened to me before
the matter was cleared up, and I found out in the next world--where I
suppose people know everything--that I had been wrong, I should have
been obliged to have asked for a furlough to come back again to set it
straight. Alice will be fidgeting her life out, and we must set out at
once; so let us have no more nonsense about delay."

Frank offered no further resistance, and agreed to start on the
following morning.

"You look more like yourself now, Frank," his uncle said, "for, except
by the tones of your voice, I should hardly have known you. You must
have grown ten inches bigger round the shoulders than you were, and have
grown into a very big man. You don't look so big here, where there are
so many burly miners about, but when you get back to London people will
quite stare at you. Your face at present is tanned almost black, and
that beard, which I suppose is the result of exposure, makes you look
half a dozen years older than you really are. I hope you will shave it
off at once, and look like a civilised English gentleman."

"I suppose I must do so," Frank said, rather ruefully, "for one never
sees a beard in London, except on a foreigner. I suppose some day men
will be sensible and wear them."

They sat talking until late in the night, Frank hearing all particulars
of the discovery of Harry's relationship to Captain Bayley, and the news
of all that had taken place since he had left England. He arranged for
sleeping accommodation for them for the night in the hut of the
storekeeper for whom he brought up provisions, judging that this was
more comfortable and quiet for them than in the crowded and noisy plank
edifice called the hotel. The next morning they started by the coach for
Sacramento, Frank ordering the muleteers to follow with the animals at
once. It was a twenty-four hours' drive; but it did not seem a long one
to any of them, for Frank had so much to tell about his doings and
adventures from the day when he last saw them, that there was scarce a
pause in their talk, until at night Captain Bayley and Harry dozed in
their corner of the coach, while Frank got outside and sat and smoked by
the driver, being altogether too excited by the sudden