Upon our return to the city I found a letter from Bok with a check for eight hundred dollars in it. This was in response to a note of mine respecting an offer of seven hundred and fifty. "Better make it eight hundred," I wrote, and so, in my triumph, I led Zulime to Vantine's and there purchased for her a carved gold ring set with three rose diamonds, the handsomest present I had ever dared to buy for her. "This is to make amends for the measly little engagement ring you were forced to accept," I remarked by way of explanation. She protested at my reckless waste of money (as she had done with regard to the brown cloak), but to no avail, and thereafter if she occasionally brought the conversation round to Oriental jewelry, I am sure she is not to be blamed. She is still wearing that ring, though she no longer finds the same girlish pleasure in displaying it. The actual making of my serial into book form began soon after New Years, for I find records of my contract with Harper and Bros., and the arrival of bundles of proof. By the end of February the book was substantially made and ready for distribution, and a handsome book it was--to me. Whatever it had started out to be, it had ended as a fictional study of the red man in his attempt to walk the white man's road, and as a concept of his tragic outlook I still think it worth while. The three men in control of the reorganized firm of Harper and Bros., George Harvey, Frederick Duneka and Frank Leigh, all professed a firm belief in _The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop_, and promised me such a boost as I had never had. This promise they set about to fulfill. As the day of publication came on they took generous squares of space in the daily papers, and whole pages in the magazines. They astonished and somewhat daunted me by putting an almost life-size portrait on the bill boards of all the elevated roads, and then to the consternation of my wife, _The Weekly_ published a full page reproduction of her photograph, a portrait which they had obtained from me to use, as I supposed, in the ordinary way in the literary column of the Sunday papers. I had no idea of its being a full page illustration. I was troubled and uneasy about this for a day or two, but realizing that the firm was doing its best to make my book known to the public, I could not with justice complain. In truth the use of the portrait seemed not to make any difference one way or the other. It certainly did Zulime no harm. At my request the firm made up a very handsome special copy of the novel which I sent to President Roosevelt, with a word of explanation concerning the purpose which underlaid the writing of the tale.