apprentice, but not too old, and that plan could be carried out; still,
we both think that the other is better. You would be almost as much
separated from us if you went to sea as you would be if you went out to
America. But before you quite decide I will read uncle's letter, which I
have found this afternoon among some other papers."

She took out the letter and opened it.

"'My dear Jack,--I am afraid it is a very long time since I wrote last;
I don't like to think how long. I have been intending to do so a score
of times, but you know I always hated writing, and I have been waiting
to tell you that I had hit upon something good at last. Even now I can
only tell you that I have been knocking about and getting older, but so
far I cannot say I have been getting richer. As I told you when I wrote
last I have several times made good hauls and struck it rich, but
somehow the money has always slipped through my fingers. Sometimes I
have put it into things that looked well enough but turned out
worthless; sometimes I have chucked it away in the fool's manner men do
here. I have just come back from a prospecting tour in the country of
the Utes, where I found two or three things that seemed good; one of
them first-rate, the best thing, I think, I have seen since I came out
here.

"'Unfortunately I cannot do anything with them at present, for the Utes
are getting troublesome, and it would be as much as one's life is worth
to go back there with a small party; so that matter must rest for a bit,
and I must look out in another quarter until the Utes settle down again.
I am going to join a hunting party that starts for the mountains next
week. I have done pretty nearly as much hunting as mining since I came
out, and though there is no big pile to be made at it, it is a pretty