"I was only foolin'-- only tryin' yer grit! This yer cousin I'm taking you to be as quiet and soft-spoken and as old-fashioned ez you be.

Why, he's that wrapped up in books and study that he lives alone in a big adobe rancherie among a lot o' Spanish, and he don't keer to see his own countrymen! Why, he's even changed his name, and calles himself Don Juan Robinson! But he's very rich; he owns three leagues of land and heaps of cattle and horses, and," glancing approvingly at Clarence's seat in the saddle, "I reckon you'll hev plenty of fun thar." "But," hesitated Clarence, to whom this proposal seemed only a repetition of Peyton's charitable offer, "I think I'd better stay here and dig gold--WITH YOU." "And I think you'd better not," said the man, with a gravity that was very like a settled determination.
"But my cousin never came for me to Sacramento--nor sent, nor even wrote," persisted Clarence indignantly.
"Not to YOU, boy; but he wrote to the man whom he reckoned would bring you there--Jack Silsbee--and left it in the care of the bank.

And Silsbee, being dead, didn't come for the letter; and as you didn't ask for it when you came, and didn't even mention Silsbee's name, that same letter was sent back to your cousin through me, because the bank thought we knew his whereabouts.

It came to the gulch by an express rider, whilst you were prospectin' on the hillside.

Rememberin' your story, I took the liberty of opening it, and found out that your cousin had told Silsbee to bring you straight to him.