the Brenchfields as a little fellow with my
mother. Brenchfield's mother and mine had been school companions in
the old days. I had had a good time on that earlier visit and the
memory of it, more than anything else, prompted me to make for
Campbeltown again.

"Mrs. Brenchfield showed me every kindness and made a home for me. She
or her husband must have sent word to my dad, who evidently decided to
let me cool my heels. He mailed me a draft for three hundred dollars
and promised a further hundred dollars a month for my keep and
education during the time I preferred to deny myself of the pardon and
loving welcome that would await me any time I cared to return home.
That was where the mistake was made. Jim, he should have insisted on
my being returned home at once and when I got home he should have
given me a right good hiding.

"I indignantly returned his draft and wrote him declining all aid from
one whom I, in my juvenile heroics, felt I could no longer respect as
a father.

"Gee!--what fools we are sometimes! And how often have I longed and
ached to hear from my dear old dad again! But I was proud, and I fear
I am still a little that way.

"I was thrown into the constant companionship of Graham Brenchfield
and despite our great dissimilarity in make-up and his three years'
advantage over me in age, we got on well together. He was different
then.

"The Brenchfields educated me, as they did Graham. I put it all down,
for a long time after, to the great goodness of their hearts, but I
have had every reason to believe lately that they were secretly in
receipt of that hundred dollars a month which I so dramatically
declined from my dad. I feel certain now that it was my stay with the
Brenchfields that so materially aided them in the education of their
own, for they had little enough money in their own right for
educational purposes.

"I pulled up on Graham at school and in a few years we were ready to
start out to conquer the world. It was then that we decided on the
Great Adventure to the Golden West, in search of fame and chiefly
fortune.

"Youthful-like, we made a vow. We were to work together if we could,
but, no matter what took place, we were to meet at the end of five
years, pool our profits and make a fair divide.

"Brenchfield had five hundred dollars in cash. I had a similar amount
coming to me from a farmer named Angus Macdonald in payment of two
summers' work I had put in on his place. Macdonald p