Ferral turned away and looked down into the blackness of the gulch. He faced about, presently, and went on:
"But it wasn't Uncle Jack's money that brought me. Now, when it's too late, I'm trying to do the right thing--and to make up for what I ought to have done and didn't do in the past. A fellow like me is thoughtless. He never understands where he's failed in his duty till a blow like this brings it home to him. He's the only relative Ralph and I had left, and I've acted like a misbemannered Sou'wegian.
"When I went to sea, I shipped from Halifax on the _Billy Ruffian_, as we called her, although she's down on the navy list as the _Bellerophon_. From there I was transferred to the South African station, and the transferring went on and on till my time was out, and I found myself down in British Honduras. Left there to come across the Gulf of Galveston, and worked my way up into the Texas Panhandle, where I navigated the Staked Plains on a cow-horse. Had six months of that, when along came the lawyer's letter, and I tripped anchor and bore away for here. As I told you, a crimp did me out of my roll in Lamy. He claimed to be a fellow Canuck in distress, and I was going with him to his hotel to see what I could do to help him out. He led me into a dark street, and somebody hit me from behind and I went down and out with a slumber-song. Then I got up and laid a course for Uncle Jack's. If you'll go with me the rest of the way, I'll like it, and you might just as well stop over at La Vita Place and make a fresh start for Santa Fé in the morning."
"We'll do it," answered Matt, who was liking Dick Ferral more and more as he talked.
"Dot's der shtuff!" chirped Carl. "Oof you got somet'ing to eat at der ranch, und a ped to shleep on, ve vill ged along fine."
"I guess we can find all that at the place, although I don't think the ranch amounts to much. Uncle Jack was queer--not unhinged, mind you, only just a bit different from ordinary people. He never did a thing in quite the same way some one else would do it. When he left England, a dozen years ago, he stopped with us a while in Hamilton, and then came on here and bought an old Mexican _casa_. He wanted to get away from folks, he said, but I guess he got tired of it; if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been so dead set on having me with him after my parents died. The bulk of his money is across the water. But hang his money! It's Uncle Jack himself I'm thinking about, now."