e tried to poison and murder me, so as to rob me
after I was dead, and keep you prisoner, my pet. The scoundrel!"

"It was all a mistake--a wretched mistake!" I murmured.

He wouldn't believe me; but he was too ill to get up, as he wanted. I
tried to make him more comfortable by assisting him to a seat on my
keg of blasting powder.

As he began to revive a little, he drew a cigar from his pocket, and
asked me if I had a match. I had none; but there was a small fire
under my frying-pan, and I brought him a coal on a chip. Miss Imogen,
when she saw the coal on the chip, began to laugh again. That
embarrassed me. My nerves were already unstrung, and my trembling
fingers unfortunately spilled the burning ember just as the old
gentleman was about to stoop over it with his cigar. It fell between
his knees, onto the head of the keg, rolled over, and dropped plumb
through the bung-hole onto the giant-powder inside.

This cured me of my bashfulness for some time, as it was over a week
before I came to my senses.

CHAPTER XV.

HE BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH A CHICAGO WIDOW.

I came to my senses in one of the bedrooms of the Shantytown Hotel.
There was only a partition between that and the other bedrooms of
brown cotton cloth, and as I slowly became conscious of things about
me, I heard two voices beyond the next curtain talking of my affairs.

"I reckon he won't know where the time's gone to when he comes to
himself ag'in. Lucky for him he didn't go up, like the old gentleman,
in such small pieces as to never come down. I don't see, fur the life
of me, what purvented. He was standin' right over the kag on which the
old chap sot. Marakalous escape, that of the young lady. Beats
everything."

"You bet, pardner, 'twouldn't happen so once in a thousand times. You
see, she was jist blowed over the ledge an' rolled down twenty or
thirty feet, an' brought up on a soft spot--wa'n't hurt a particle.
But how she does take on about her pop! S'pose you knew her brother's
come on fur her?"

"No."

"Yes; got here by the noon stage. They're reckoning to leave
Shantytown immegitly. Less go down and see 'em off!"

They shuffled away.

I don't know whether my head ached, but I know my heart did. I was a
murderer. Or, if not quite so bad as a deliberate murderer, I was, at
the very least, guilty of manslaughter. And why? Because I had not
been able to overcome my wicked weakness. I felt sick of life, of
everything--especially