"But we've got to go and live on that claim. We've _got_ to."

Vic's face purpled. "Say, are you plumb _bugs_? Why--" Vic gulped and
stuttered. "Say, where do you get that stuff? You better tie a can to it,
sis; it don't get over with me. I'm for screen fame, and I'm going to get
it too. Why, by the time I'm twenty, I'll betcha I can pull down a salary
that'll make Charlie Chaplin look like an extra! Why, my grin--"

"Your grin you can use on the goats," Helen May quelled unfeelingly. "I
only hope it won't scare the poor things to death. You needn't argue
about it--as if I was crazy to go! Do you think I want to leave Los
Angeles, and everybody I know, and everything I care about, and go to New
Mexico and live like a savage, and raise goats? I'd rather go to jail, if
you ask me. I hate the very thought of a ranch, Vic Stevenson, and you
know I do. But that doesn't matter a particle. Dad--"

"I told you dad was crazy!" Vic's tone was too violent for grief. His
young ambitions were in jeopardy, and even his dad's death must look
unimportant alongside the greater catastrophe that threatened. "Do you
think, for gosh sake, the whole family's got to be nutty just because he
was sick and got a queer streak?"

"You've no right to say that. Dad--knew what he was doing."

"Aw, where do you get that dope?" Vic eyed her disgustedly, and with a
good deal of condescension. "If you had any sense, you'd knew he was
queer for days before it happened. _I_ noticed it, all right, and if
you didn't--"

Helen May did not say anything at all. She got up and went to her room