These uncertain arrivals of news from the outside world made important epochs in the life of the past. The few papers and letters were handled as if they had been gold, and the contents were read and reread until almost worn out. For Dr. Gale came a bulky letter or package of letters tied together and sealed over the string with a circle of red wax. There was no envelope, as we have now, but each letter was written so as to leave a blank space after folding for the superscription, and the postage was at least twenty-five cents on the three letters so tied together. The postmark of the outer one was New York City; it was from a law firm and informed Dr. Marion F. Gale, surgeon of the Sixth Infantry, stationed at Fort Atkinson, the "camp on the Missouri river," that the accompanying letters had been received by them from a firm of London solicitors, and begging to call his attention to the same. His attention being most effectually called thereto elicited first that Messrs. Shadwell & Fitch of London desired them to ascertain the whereabouts of Marion F. Gale, late of Ipswich, England, and now supposed to be serving in the U. S. army in the capacity of surgeon, and convey to him the accompanying information, being still further to the effect that by a sudden death of James Burton Gale, who died without male issue, he, Marion F. Gale, being next of kin, was heir to the estate of Burton Towers, Ipswich, England. Last came a letter from the widow of his brother, telling him the particulars of his brother's death. Ten years before he had left home with a hundred pounds in his pocket and his profession, to make himself a career in the new country. There were two brothers older than he, one of them married, and there seemed little prospect that he would ever become proprietor of Burton Towers; but they, who lived apparently in security, were gone, and he who had traversed the riverway of an unknown and unsettled country, among Indians and wild animals, was alive and well to take their place. He thought of the change, back to the quiet life of an English country squire, after these ten years of the free life of the plains, and the soldiers and the Indians. The hunting of the buffalo, the bear, and the elk exchanged for the tame brush after a wild fox, or the shooting of a few partridges. But the family instinct was strong, after all, and his eye gleamed as he saw the old stone house, with its gables and towers, its glorious lawns and broad driveway with the elms meeting overhead. Oh, it would satisfy that part of his nature well to go back as its master. This vision it was that had filled his eyes as they looked so far away. But then they came back again and rested on Nikumi and the child.