you can always tell. I am loitering here overlong, I confess it. But if
you were in my place you would have charity for me. Yes, I know what you
will say, and you are right: if I were in your place, and carried your
scalding memories in my heart--

I will take the night train back to-morrow.


DENVER, June 20
God forgive us, mother, me are hunting the wrong man! I have not slept
any all night. I am now awaiting, at dawn, for the morning train--and
how the minutes drag, how they drag!

This Jacob Fuller is a cousin of the guilty one. How stupid we have been
not to reflect that the guilty one would never again wear his own name
after that fiendish deed! The Denver Fuller is four years younger than
the other one; he came here a young widower in '79, aged twenty-one--a
year before you were married; and the documents to prove it are
innumerable. Last night I talked with familiar friends of his who have
known him from the day of his arrival. I said nothing, but a few days
from now I will land him in this town again, with the loss upon his mine
made good; and there will be a banquet, and a torch-light procession, and
there will not be any expense on anybody but me. Do you call this
"gush"? I am only a boy, as you well know; it is my privilege. By and
by I shall not be a boy any more.


SILVER GULCH, July 3
Mother, he is gone! Gone, and left no trace. The scent was cold when I
came. To-day I am out of bed for the first time since. I wish I were