I've a mother living in Illinois.

I want to go home.

It's eight years now." The older man's sympathy moved Venters to tell his story.

He had left Quincy, run off to seek his fortune in the gold fields had never gotten any farther than Salt Lake City, wandered here and there as helper, teamster, shepherd, and drifted southward over the divide and across the barrens and up the rugged plateau through the passes to the last border settlements.

Here he became a rider of the sage, had stock of his own, and for a time prospered, until chance threw him in the employ of Jane Withersteen.
"Lassiter, I needn't tell you the rest." "Well, it'd be no news to me.