Mark Manning's Mission

"I wonder what they are going to do," said James. "Mark has got a spade."

"I don't know. Suppose we hide, and then we'll find out."

This proposal struck James favorably, and they concealed themselves behind a clump of low trees, as already described. With eager eyes they watched the preliminary measurement, and the subsequent excavation.

"The old man's a miser," whispered James. "He's got gold hidden there."

"Just what I think," responded Tom, also in a whisper.

"I wonder if there's much."

"Hush! We'll soon see."

They were not near enough to hear what passed between Mark and Anthony, but they saw the gold coins which the boy passed to his employer. Then they saw the dirt replaced, and the spot made to look as before.

When Mark and Anthony had gone, they emerged from their hiding-place, eager and excited.

"Well," said James, drawing a long breath, "we've found the hermit's secret. He must be a miser. I wonder how much more gold there is in the hole."

"Thousands of dollars, very likely," said Tom, who had a vivid imagination. "You know it doesn't take a very big pile of gold to make a thousand dollars."

"Mark Manning is pretty thick with old Anthony. He trusts him more than I would."

"Mark'll rob him someday. See if he don't."

"I shouldn't wonder. I say, Tom, don't you tell a living soul of what we've seen this afternoon. If Mark steals the money, we can expose him. He little thinks we know his secret."

Tom agreed to this, and the two boys went home. When they next saw Mark, they regarded him with a knowing look that puzzled him.

CHAPTER XVI.

LYMAN TAYLOR GAINS SOME INFORMATION

When Lyman Taylor left his uncle and returned to the city, he felt that his visit had been a failure. His traveling expenses had amounted to about two dollars, and he only carried back five dollars with him. Added to this, his prospects of remunerative employment were by no means brilliant. To work, indeed, he was an enemy, and always had been.

"Blessed if I know how I'm coming out," he said to himself, ruefully; "if Uncle Anthony had showed any enterprise, he ought to be well off, and able to lend me a helping hand. Instead of which he is settled down in a tumble-down shanty in the woods, and isn't doing any good to anybody."

Lyman resented it as a wrong done to himself that his uncle was not in a condition to help him.

If he were only living in the city now, he might quarter himself upon him. As matters stood, it was out of the question. It made him shudder to think of becoming a joint tenant of the lonely cabin, with nothing to look to but the homely fare, which no doubt contented his uncle.

"I shall have to shift for myself," he reflected with a sigh; "I always was unlucky. Other fellows are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and have rich fathers or uncles to provide for them, while I may go to the poorhouse for all the help I am likely to get from Uncle Anthony."

Arrived in New York, however, his prospects rose a little. He met an old acquaintance on the Bowery, and turned into a billiard saloon, where he succeeded in a series of games in raising his small capital to ten dollars.

This gave him a hint of a new way to make a living—a way, as he considered, infinitely preferable to a life of toil. Henceforth he frequented billiard saloons, and occasionally varied his pleasant labors by a game of cards. In spite, however, of his praiseworthy efforts to make an honest livelihood, there came a time when he was reduced to his last quarter of a dollar.

He was sitting moodily in a cheap downtown hotel, when he was addressed by a bearded man dressed in rough miner's costume, a type of man more frequently met in California or Colorado, than in an Atlantic city.

"Have a cigar, stranger?" asked the bearded man socially.

"Thank you; I don't care if I do," said Lyman with alacrity.

"I'm a stranger in York," said the other, "only arrived yesterday. You've got a right smart city here; beats 'Frisco higher'n a kite!"

"Do you come from San Francisco?" asked Lyman with interest.

"I'm from Californy—was up in the mines mostly."

"Did you have much luck?"

"Wal, I made two or three piles, an' lost 'em agin. However, I've got a little left. I've always wanted to see York, and thought I might as well come on and see it before I lost the last."

"I'm glad to meet you," said Lyman, who was speculating as to whether he couldn't make a little something out of his new friend, before his "pile" was wholly reduced in size. "I'm an old Californian myself."

"You don't say so? when was you there?"

Lyman mentioned the time, and the country where he had courted fortune.

"You don't say, stranger?" returned the miner. "Why, I was at that identical place myself. I bought a mine—leastways me and my partner did—of an old man, named Taylor."

"Anthony Taylor?" asked Lyman, eagerly.

"That was the old fellow's name. Did you know him, stranger?"

"I should say I did. He is my uncle. Did you—pay much for the claim?"

"We paid five thousand dollars cash down."

Lyman Taylor whistled in amazement.

"Was it worth it?" he added.

"We took out ten thousand dollars, and I heerd that the old man took out as much before selling it to us."

"What month did you buy it?" asked Lyman, breathless.

"Let me see, it was in September. You seem to be interested, stranger?"

"I should say I was. That claim was half mine, and my uncle never gave me a cent of the purchase money."

"Where were you all the time?"

"I left in disgust, for we'd worked a long time without making it pay."

"You left too soon. The old man struck it rich some time early in August, and carried away ten thousand dollars, besides what we gave him. We didn't make so much of a spec, for too much had been taken out already. Where is your uncle now?"

"Living in the country. I went up to see him two or three weeks since."