SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 1898
You already know how well I have searched the states from Colorado to the
Pacific, and how nearly I came to getting him once. Well, I have had
another close miss. It was here, yesterday. I struck his trail, hot, on
the street, and followed it on a run to a cheap hotel. That was a costly
mistake; a dog would have gone the other way. But I am only part dog,
and can get very humanly stupid when excited. He had been stopping in
that house ten days; I almost know, now, that he stops long nowhere, the
past six or eight months, but is restless and has to keep moving. I
understand that feeling! and I know what it is to feel it. He still
uses the name he had registered when I came so near catching him nine
months ago--"James Walker"; doubtless the same he adopted when he fled
from Silver Gulch. An unpretending man, and has small taste for fancy
names. I recognized the hand easily, through its slight disguise. A
square man, and not good at shams and pretenses.

They said he was just gone, on a journey; left no address; didn't say
where he was going; looked frightened when asked to leave his address;
had no baggage but a cheap valise; carried it off on foot--a "stingy old
person, and not much loss to the house." "Old!" I suppose he is, now I
hardly heard; I was there but a moment. I rushed along his trail, and it
led me to a wharf. Mother, the smoke of the steamer he had taken was
just fading out on the horizon! I should have saved half on hour if I
had gone in the right direction at first. I could have taken a fast tug,
and should have stood a chance of catching that vessel. She is bound for
Melbourne.