Then, failing to find the only person to whom he had a note of introduction, and also being unable to obtain work, he finally expended his last dollar for transportation to Red Jacket, where he knew he must either find employment or starve. And thus was our hero led to the point at which we first made his acquaintance.
As Peveril walked with his newly made acquaintance through the brisk mining-town, of whose very name he had been ignorant until that day, Mark Trefethen directed his attention to its various places and objects of interest. Of one small but handsome stone building, surrounded by grass and shade-trees, he said:
"There's where the swells get's their beer."
Peveril instantly knew it for a club-house, and, with a pang of regret for the lost comforts of such an establishment, glanced enviously at its cosey interior, disclosed through open windows.
At length they reached the modest cottage, built on the plan of a hundred others, that Mark Trefethen rented from the company and called his home. The room into which Peveril was ushered was scrupulously clean and neat, but seemed to him painfully bare and cheerless. It was lighted by a single, unshaded lamp, that stood in the middle of an oilcloth-covered table laid for supper. Half a dozen cheap wooden chairs and a sewing-machine of inferior grade completed its furnishing. The new-comer had only time for a single glance at these things as he entered the door, before his recent acquaintance of the train, who now seemed almost like an old friend, sprang forward with outstretched hand, exclaiming:
"I'm so glad you've come, for I was afraid father might not find you, or you might get tired of waiting, or that something might have happened to take you some other place. I would have gone back myself, only father wouldn't have it that way, and claimed 'twas his place to fetch you."
"Surely, son; and why not? Could I do less than give the first welcome to one who has done for us what Mr. Peril has? Mother, take a step and shake hands wi' him who saved our boy to us this day. I couldn't believe it till I seen him hit 'Blacky' such a blow as but one other in all Red Jacket has ever struck. What do you think of one ninety-five for a record?"