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 not
a boy; then I could stand shocks better. They all think he went west.
I start to-night, in a wagon--two or three hours of that, then I get a
train. I don't know where I'm going, but I must go; to try to keep still
would be torture.

Of course he has effaced himself with a new name and a disguise. This
means that I may have to search the whole globe to find him. Indeed it
is what I expect. Do you see, mother? It is I that am the Wandering Jew.
The irony of it! We arranged that for another.

Think of the difficulties! And there would be none if I only could
advertise for him. But if there is any way to do it that would not
frighten him, I have not been able to think it out, and I have tried
till my brains are addled. "If the gentleman who lately bought a mine
in Mexico and sold one in Denver will send his address to--" (to whom,
mother?), "it will be explained to him that it was all a mistake; his
forgiveness will be asked, and full reparation made for a loss which he
sustained in a certain matter." Do you see? He would think it a trap.
Well, any one would. If I should say, "It is now known that he was not
the man wanted, but another man--a man who once bore the same name, but
discarded it for good reasons"--would that answer? But the Denver people
would wake up then and say "Oho!" and they would remember about the
suspicious greenbacks, and say, "Why did he run away if he wasn't the
right man?--it is too thin." If I failed to find him he would be ruined
there--there where there is no taint upon him now. You have a better
head than mine. Help me.

I have one clue, and only one. I know his handwriting. If he puts his
new false name upon a hotel register and does not disguise it too much,
it will be valuable to me if I ever run across it.

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
mista