colored waiter who served his breakfasts in the
bachelor apartment house, and increased his weekly tip to a dollar and a
half. Then he sat down and opened the Times-Republican, skimming over
it after his habit for his own space, and frowning over a row of
exclamation and interrogation points unwittingly set behind the name of
the mayor.

On the second page, however, he stopped, coffee cup in air. "Is Judson
Clark alive? Wife of former ranch manager makes confession."

A woman named Margaret Donaldson, it appeared, fatally injured by an
automobile near the town of Norada, Wyoming, had made a confession on
her deathbed. In it she stated that, afraid to die without shriving her
soul, she had sent for the sheriff of Dallas County and had made the
following confession:

That following the tragedy at the Clark ranch her husband, John
Donaldson, since dead, had immediately following the inquest, where he
testified, started out into the mountains in the hope of finding Clark
alive, as he knew of a deserted ranger's cabin where Clark sometimes
camped when hunting. It was his intention to search for Clark at this
cabin and effect his escape. He carried with him food and brandy.

That, owing to the blizzard, he was very nearly frozen; that he was
obliged to abandon his horse, shooting it before he did so, and that,
close to death himself, he finally reached the cabin and there found
Judson Clark, the fugitive, who was very ill.

She further testified that her husband cared for Clark for four days,
Clark being delirious at the time, and that on the fifth day he started
back on foot for the Clark ranch, having left Clark locked in the cabin,
and that on the following night he took three horses, two saddled, and
one packed with food and supplies. That accompanied by herself they went
back to the cabin in the mountains and that she remained there to
care for Clark, while her husband returned to the ranch, to prevent
suspicion.

That, a day or so later, looking out of her window, she had perceived
a man outside in the snow coming toward the cabin, and that she had
thought it one of the searching party. That her first instinct had been
to lock him outside, but that she had finally admitted him, and that
thereafter he had remained and had helped her to care for the sick man.

Unfortunately for the rest of the narrative it appeared that the injured
woman had here lapsed into a coma, and had subsequently died, carrying
her further