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these documents was a letter from the solicitors to the family saying that they had heard from their agents at San Francisco that he had presented himself in answer to their advertisement, and had shown them the letters of the late Mr. Edgar Tunstall. They therefore forwarded him copies of the will, and of Mr. Tunstall's letter, and begged him to return home without delay, as his presence was urgently required. They assumed, of course, that they were writing to Mr. William Tunstall, and that when he arrived he would have no difficulty whatever in proving his identity.
"I think I must go, boys," he said as, after reading his brother's letter three or four times, he folded the papers up, and put them in his pocket. "My brother has made me guardian of his boy, and puts it so strongly that I think I must go over for a bit. I don't suppose I shall have to stop; although the lawyers say that I am urgently required there; but, mind, I mean to do just what I said. I shall take a thousand pounds or so, and renounce the rest. A nice figure I should make setting up at home as a big land-owner. I should be perfectly miserable there. No, you take my word for it, I shall be back here in six months at the outside. I shall get a joint guardian appointed to the boy; the clergyman of the place, or some one who is better fitted to see after his education and bringing up than I am. When he gets to seventeen or eighteen, and a staunch friend who knows the world pretty well may be really of use to him, I shall go over and take him on his travels for two or three years. Bring him out here a bit, perhaps. However, that is in the distance. I am going now for a few months; then you will see me back here. I wish I wasn't going; it is a horrible nuisance, but I don't see that I can get out of it."
"Certainly you cannot, Bill; it is your plain duty. We don't go by duty much in these diggings, and it will be pleasant to see somebody do a thing that he doesn't like because it is right. We shall miss you, of course miss you badly. But we all lose friends, and nowhere so much as here; for what with drink and fever and bullets the percentage wiped out is large. You are going because, in fact, you can't help yourself. We shall be glad when you come back; but if you don't come back, we shall know that it was because you couldn't. Yes, I know you have quite made up your mind about that; but circumstances are too strong for men, and it may be that, however much you may wish it, you won't be able to come. Well, we shall be clearing up the claim in another two or three days, so it could not come at a better time if it had to come."
The work was continued to the end of the week, and then, the last pan of dirt having been washed, the partners divided the result. Each week's take had been sent down by the weekly convoy to the bank at Sacramento, for robberies were not uncommon, and prudent men only retained enough gold-dust by them for their immediate wants. But adding the dust and nuggets acquired during the last and best week's work to the amount for which they had the bank's receipt, the four partners found that they had, after paying all their expenses, two hundred and fifty ounces of gold.
"Sixty-two ounces and a half each," the doctor said. "It might have been better, it might have been worse. We put in twenty-five each four months ago, so we have got thirty-seven ounces each for our work, after paying expenses, and each drawing half an ounce a day to spend as he liked. This we have, of course, all of us laid by."
There was a general laugh, for not one of them had above an ounce or two remaining.
"Well, it isn't bad anyhow, doctor," William Tunstall said. "Sixty-two ounces apiece will make roughly £250, which is as much as we have ever had before on winding up a job. My share will be enough to lake me to England and back."
"Yes, provided you don't drop it all in some gambling saloon at Sacramento or San Francisco," the doctor said.
"I shan't do that, doctor. I have lost big sums before now in a night's play, I confess; but I knew I could set to work and earn more. Now I have got an object before me."
That afternoon English Bill went round the camp saying good-bye to his acquaintances, and although it was very seldom that he drank too much, the standing treat and being treated in turn was too much for his head, and it was with a very unsteady step indeed that he returned late in the evening to his tent. Sim Howlett, who had started with him, had succumbed hours before, and had been carried down from the saloon by a party who were scarcely able to keep on their own legs.
When Will Tunstall woke in the morning he had but a vague idea of the events of the latter part of the evening. He remembered hazily that there had been many quarrels and rows, but what they had been about he knew not, though he felt sure that there had been no
shooting. He had a dim recollection that he had gone into Symonds' room at the hotel, where he had some champagne, and a talk about his trip to England and about the people there.