“Well, let it pass! When did you reach Sacramento?”
“Only yesterday. Ah, Grant, I have had sad vicissitudes! I wandered in the wilderness, nearly starving, till I came across a party of Pennsylvania Quakers, who aided me and brought me with them to this place.”
“I hope you did not repay their hospitality as you did ours.”
“No, no. I obeyed the promptings of my better nature. And now, how have you prospered? Have you been to the mines?”
“No, I have been employed in a restaurant.”
“In a restaurant! Oh, how the word moves me! Ah, Grant, I have not tasted food for twenty-four hours.”
“Come with me, then, and I will see that you have a dinner.”
He took Silverthorn to the restaurant and authorized him to order what he liked. Mr. Silverthorn was by no means backward in accepting the invitation, and Grant had a dollar to pay.
“I feel better!” sighed Silverthorn. “Do you think I could get employment here?”
“And how are my old friends, the Coopers?”
“Mr. Cooper is running a blacksmith shop, and Tom is at Howe’s Gulch, where I am going.”
“Could you—you are so kind—pay my expenses to the mines? I should so like to see my friend Tom.”
“No, I couldn’t,” answered Grant bluntly.
“I thought I would ask,” said Silverthorn, by no means abashed. “Tell Mr. Cooper that I will soon call at his shop.”
“I don’t think he will care to see you,” thought Grant.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE FIRST DAY AT THE MINES.
About three o’clock in the afternoon the stage from Sacramento arrived at Howe’s Gulch.
Among the other passengers Grant descended, his limbs sore from rattling over the roughest kind of roads, and stretching himself, he looked around him.
The stage had drawn up in front of the hotel, but it was not such a hotel as the reader is accustomed to see. It was a long, low frame building, with what might be called an attic overhead, which was used as a general dormitory, with loose beds of straw spread over the floor. Here twenty-five persons slept in a single room. Down below rude meals were supplied for those who could afford to pay the price.
But Grant felt little interest in the hotel. He expected to meet Tom Cooper, and looked out for him.
“How are you, Grant? Delighted to see you. How’s the folks?”
Grant turned, and in the bearded, roughly dressed miner found it difficult to recognize his friend of the plains—Tom Cooper.