Twice Bought Part 38

And did Tom forget his old friends in Oregon? No! He became noted for the length and strength of his correspondence. He wrote to Flinders begging him to come home and help him with his property, and Flinders accepted. He wrote to Mahoghany Drake and sent him a splendid rifle, besides good advice and many other things, at different times, too numerous to mention. He wrote to little Tolly Trevor endeavouring to persuade him to come to England and be "made a man of", but Tolly politely declined, preferring to follow the fortunes of Mahoghany and be made a man of in the backwoods sense of the expression, in company with his fast friend the Leaping Buck. Tolly sent his special love to the Rose of Oregon, and said that she would be glad to hear that the old place in the Sawback range had become a little colony, and that a missionary had settled in it, and Gashford had held by his promise to her--not only giving up drink and gambling entirely, but had set up a temperance coffee-house and a store, both of which were in the full blast of prosperity.

Tolly also said, in quite a poetical burst, that the fragrance of the Rose not only remained in the Colony, but was still felt as a blessed memory and a potent influence for good throughout all the land.

Finally, Tom Brixton settled down to a life of usefulness beside his mother--who lived to a fabulous old age--and was never tired of telling, especially to his young friends, of his wonderful adventures in the Far West and how he had been twice bought--once with gold and once with blood.

THE END.