He is a man who has a varied taste in the selection of his women; is
honest in a general way, and perfectly frank about his amours. He has
been most generous with LAURA MURDOCK, and his close relations with
several very prominent theatrical managers have made it possible for
him to secure her desirable engagements, generally in New York. With
all her past experiences, tragic and otherwise, LAURA MURDOCH has
found nothing equal to this sudden, this swiftly increasing, love for
the young Western man. At first she attempted to deceive him. Her baby
face, her masterful assumption of innocence and childlike devotion,
made no impression upon him. He has let her know in no uncertain way
that he knew her record from the day she stepped on American soil in
San Francisco to the time when she had come to Denver, but still he
liked her.

JOHN MADISON is a peculiar type of the Western man. Up to the time of
his meeting LAURA, he had always been employed either in the mines
or on a newspaper west of the Mississippi River. He is one of those
itinerant reporters; to-day you might find him in Seattle, to-morrow
in Butte, the next week in Denver, and then possibly he would make
the circuit from Los Angeles to 'Frisco, and then all around again.
He drinks his whiskey straight, plays his faro fairly, and is not
particular about the women with whom he goes. He started life in
the Western country at an early age. His natural talents, both in
literature and in general adaptability to all conditions of life,
were early exhibited, but his _alma mater_ was the bar-room, and
the faculty of that college its bartenders and gamblers and general
habitués.

He seldom has social engagements outside of certain disreputable
establishments, where a genial personality or an over-burdened