ing to marry her, had
resolved to go to California, to make the necessary money, quickly. He
was successful; returned full of joyful anticipations, and arrived at an
old neighbor's, a few miles from his home, having hardly tasted food or
taken any rest the previous twenty-four hours.

"While he hastily ate some breakfast and listened to the friendly gossip
of his entertainers, one name, the name of her he loved, his promised
wife, was mentioned. _She was married._ He staggered to his feet, asking
the name of her husband; and when he heard it, he knew he had been
betrayed by that man. He could recall a strange sensation in his brain,
as if molten lead had been poured into it; that was the last of his
recollections. Afterward, he learned that he had been weeks in a brain
fever.

"When he had recovered, some of his old friends, thinking to do him
honor, made an evening party for him. To this party came his love, and
her husband; his betrayer. When she gave her hand to welcome him home,
and looked in his eyes, he knew that she too had been betrayed. Again
the molten lead seemed poured upon his brain. Turning to leave the room,
fate placed in his path the man he now hated with a deadly hatred. With
one blow of a knife, he laid him dead at his feet. A few hours later, in
the desperation of trying to escape, he killed two other men. Then he
eluded his pursuers, and got back to California. Since then he had
reveled in murder, and every species of crime. Once he had seen, in the
streets of Sacramento, the woman he loved. Up to that moment, it had
never occurred to him that she was free. Following her to her home, he
forced himself into her house, and reminded her of their former
relations. She had denied all knowledge of him, finally calling upon her
husband to satisfy him. The husband ordered him out of the house, and he
shot him. Then the Vigilantes made it hazardous to remain in California.
He fled to the mountains, where he was nearly starved out, when I took
him in and fed and clothed him.

"Such was his story. My blood curdled in my veins, as I listened to the
recitals of his atrocities. 'In God's name,' I said, 'who are you--what
is your name?' 'I am BOONE HELM.'"

"Who was Boone Helm?" I asked.

"One of the greatest desperadoes that ever was on this coast. He met his
fate, afterward, up east of the mountains."

"What did you do with him? What _could_ you do with him?"

"You ought to have shot him while you had hi