“Mr. Knapp and his brother parted thirty years ago in Ohio. The brother--the man who has just gone--was younger than Mr. Knapp, though he looked older. He was wild in his youth. When he left home it was in the night, and for some offense that would have brought him within reach of the law. Mr. Knapp never told me what it was and I never asked. For fifteen years nothing was heard of him. Mr. Knapp and I married, we had come to San Francisco, and he was already a rising man in the city. One day this man came. He had drifted to the coast in some lawless enterprise, and by chance found his brother.” Mrs. Knapp paused. “And at once began to live off of him, I suppose,” I threw in as an encouragement to proceed. “Not exactly,” said Mrs. Knapp. “He confessed some of his rascality to Mr. Knapp, but pleaded that he was anxious to reform. Mr. Knapp agreed to help him, but made the condition that he should take another name, and should never allow the relationship to be known. Mr. Lane--I can not call him by his true name--was ready to agree to the conditions. I think he was very glad indeed to conceal himself under an assumed name, and hide from the memory of his earlier years.” “Had his crimes then been so great?” I asked, as Mrs. Knapp again ceased to speak. “He had been a wicked, wicked man,” said Mrs. Knapp. “The full tale of his villainy I never knew, but he had been a negro stealer,--one of those who captured free negroes or the darkies from Kentucky and Missouri in the days before the war, and sold them down the river. He had been the leader of a wild band in Arkansas and Texas, who made their living by robbing travelers and stealing horses. He had been near death a hundred times, yet he had escaped unhurt. Mr. Knapp helped him. He prospered in business, bought a ranch, and turned farmer. To all appearances, he had reformed completely. No one would suspect in the Sonoma rancher the daring leader of the outlaws in Texas.” “I could believe anything of him,” I said grimly.