How it begins
Probably Susan Hawthorne got a lot of her courage and independence from her father, old Smiler Hawthorne, who in his time had been nearly everything and nearly everywhere—a tall, grizzled man who was generally broke but always unbeatable. Anyway, wherever she got it from, she needed it all; for old Hawthorne crossed the Divide one night with the same reckless optimism as he had gone through life. He left her his name and thirty pounds, the rest of his fortune having disappeared only a week before, together with the promoter of a company whose sole asset was a diamond field wherein no diamonds were.
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