The pot of gold, the real strike, his dream run to earth, lay somewhere up ahead, around the next bend of the trail. It was all right. That next bend was my father’s pot of gold, just as I’d said in my letter. I wondered how long he could have lasted before those beckoning hills stirred the old restlessness. How many months before the ranch itself was his enemy, and, the first crack had appeared that told of trouble coming? We waved goodbye, and I watched him ride away to keep his appointment with Fortune.
