She happens
to be making the trip."
When they were aboard and the cabin boy had shown them to what was
dignified by the name of stateroom, Bill drew a long envelope from his
pocket.
"Here," he said, "is a little money. I hope you won't let any foolish
pride stand in the way of using it freely. It came easy to me. I dug
it out of Mother Earth, and there's plenty more where it came from.
Seeing that I deprived you of access to your own money and all your
personal belongings, you are entitled to this any way you look at it.
And I want to throw in a bit of gratuitous advice--in case you should
conclude to go back to the Meadows. They probably looked high and low
for you. But there is no chance for them to learn where you actually
did get to unless you yourself tell them. The most plausible
explanation--and if you go there you must make some explanation--would
be for you to say that you got lost--which is true enough--and that you
eventually fell in with a party of Indians, and later on connected up
with a party of white people who were traveling coastward. That you
wintered with them, and they put you on a steamer and sent you to
Vancouver when spring opened.
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