otel to keep my baggage till I should send for it. I need
nothing here but a change of army shirts, and I brought that with me.

SILVER GULCH, June 12.

The Denver episode has never found its way here, I think. I know the
most of the men in camp, and they have never referred to it, at least
in my hearing. Fuller doubtless feels quite safe in these conditions. He
has located a claim, two miles away, in an out-of-the-way place in the
mountains; it promises very well, and he is working it diligently. Ah,
but the change in him! He never smiles, and he keeps quite to himself,
consorting with no one--he who was so fond of company and so cheery
only two months ago. I have seen him passing along several times
recently--drooping, forlorn, the spring gone from his step, a pathetic
figure. He calls himself David Wilson.

I can trust him to remain here until we disturb him. Since you insist, I
will banish him again, but I do not see how he can be unhappier than he
already is. I will go hack to Denver and treat myself to a little season
of comfort, and edible food, and endurable beds, and bodily decency;
then I will fetch my things, and notify poor papa Wilson to move on.

DENVER, June 19.

They miss him here. They all hope he is prospering in Mexico, and they
do not say it just with their mouths, but out of their hearts. You know
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, we 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-