rtly because I hated to leave it, and
partly because the equinoctial storms had ris' the rivers and carried away
the bridges, and made the travel between Wild Cats and St. Sebastian awful
hard and risky.

"In that first year of my widdyhood, I had a heap of offers from one and
another of the boys, for there wa'n't many wimmin there; but I snubbed 'em
all.

"It wasn't till the next summer that I went to St. Sebastian to see about
drawing out my money, or a part of it, to go East.

"Well, there at the Hidalgo Inn, I met with Col. Anglesea, and sorter got
acquainted long of him. He had been out on the plains with a lot of
English officers, a-hunting of the buffalo, or pretending to do it, and
now he was on his way home, so he said--gwine to sail from 'Frisco to
York, and then to Liverpool. He said as he had inwested half a million o'
money in Californy. Lord sakes, how that man lied!

"Then, like a plagued fool as I was, with nobody to advise me--don't tell
me about wimmen having any sense! They always get coaxed, or swindled, or
scared out o' their money!--I goes and tells that blamed beat and cheat
about my hundred and twenty-three thousand four hundred and fifty dollars,
and asks his opinion how I ought to inwest it.

"And he tells me cock-and-bull stories about companies, and shares, and
per cents. and things that I knew nothing about. And he wanted me to give
him the money to inwest for me, and save me the trouble and 'noyance.

"But I wasn't quite such a donkey as that, nyther! I just wouldn't trust
him with a dollar! No more would I sign any paper that he brought me. No,
not one! Yet I did like the insiniwating creetur' to such an extent, even
then, that I couldn't bear to hurt his feelings by seeming to distrust
him, and so I always made some excuse for not doing what he recommended.

"After that he changed his course and began to make love to me! Lord, how
that man could make love! Ask that gal of your'n! I reckon she could tell
you!

"Well, I don't know how it was to this day! I must 'a' been bewitched! But
I was such a cornsarned fool that I went and married him! And two weeks
after that he levanted, with all my money! Leastways, all to a trifle of
about twenty dollars, which I had about me in my room, and which just was
enough to take me back to Wild Cats' Gulch. And, if ever you did see a
chop-fallen cuss going home, that was me! The hotel people had even kept
my boxes for my board!

"Oh, but the boy