fter a sudden and heavy disappointment, there is no reason
why vague charges should be advanced against a young lady. To this,
I answer that they are welcome to their opinion. For my own part, I
ascribe the death of William Prescott, of Archibald Reeves, and of John
Barrington Cowles to this woman with as much confidence as if I had seen
her drive a dagger into their hearts.

You ask me, no doubt, what my own theory is which will explain all these
strange facts. I have none, or, at best, a dim and vague one. That Miss
Northcott possessed extraordinary powers over the minds, and through the
minds over the bodies, of others, I am convinced, as well as that her
instincts were to use this power for base and cruel purposes. That some
even more fiendish and terrible phase of character lay behind this--some
horrible trait which it was necessary for her to reveal before
marriage--is to be inferred from the experience of her three lovers,
while the dreadful nature of the mystery thus revealed can only be
surmised from the fact that the very mention of it drove from her those
who had loved her so passionately. Their subsequent fate was, in my
opinion, the result of her vindictive remembrance of their desertion of
her, and that they were forewarned of it at the time was shown by the
words of both Reeves and Cowles. Above this, I can say nothing. I lay
the facts soberly before the public as they came under my notice. I have
never seen Miss Northcott since, nor do I wish to do so. If by the words
I have written I can save any one human being from the snare of those
bright eyes and that beautiful face, then I can lay down my pen with the
assurance that my poor friend has not died altogether in vain.

ELIAS B. HOPKINS, THE PARSON OF JACKMAN'S GULCH.

He was known in the Gulch as the Reverend Elias B. Hopkins, but it was
generally understood that the title was an honorary one, extorted by his
many eminent qualities, and not borne out by any legal claim which he
could adduce. "The Parson" was another of his sobriquets, which was
sufficiently distinctive in a land where the flock was scattered and the
shepherds few. To do him justice, he never pretended to have received
any preliminary training for the ministry, or any orthodox qualification
to practise it. "We're all working in the claim of the Lord," he
remarked one day, "and it don't matter a cent whether we're hired for
the job or whether we waltzes in on our own account," a p