I cannot tell how hard it was for me to believe this of Jim Hosley, that great, lumbering fellow, handsome and manly, the personification of comfortable, attractive indolence and agreeable indifference. "Pity you never saw Hosley," said I to Hygeia. She was now prepared to hear me speak of him at any time. "What did he look like? Dark and swarthy; rather short, I imagine, with curly, black hair." "Turn that upside down, inside out and stretch it and you'll have it," said I. She laughed and left the room. What a charming fellow Jim was to get on with! Perhaps those virtues had been his resources in a wild career of crime and his strongest allies in effecting a concealment of his true self. Thus my analytical mind threshed out the ramifications of possibilities. My intimate relations with him for so many years further convinced me that if he had followed that long career of crime outlined by Tescheron he must have begun when he was playing "Injuns" up in Oswegatchie County. Then I would cheer myself with the thought that something in Jim's favor would turn up soon and all would be well again, and we would get a new outfit of stuff for about eighty-five dollars--that's what we paid before--and start in housekeeping again; perhaps on the second floor, so as to get in line with the inexorable law of falling bodies. Mr. Tescheron, I supposed, would somehow blame Jim for the fire and count it part of the grand plot to seize his daughter. Well, it was all too much for me, with my weak body and easily fatigued brain. It was hard work to keep my nerves calm under the circumstances. My brother Silas had come down to see me, but when I began to mend he returned to Oswegatchie County, completely worn out with three weeks' tramping on city sidewalks. He made a number of inquiries for me concerning Hosley at the City Hall and among our old neighbors. He could learn nothing, however, so it was clear that Jim had departed for parts unknown. Silas carried back the news of my returning health to the folks, and was also able to inform them that the cars ran all night down here in New York--a matter they had never seen reported in the papers and I had never referred to in my letters. When he left, I was as lonesome as a retired pork packer dabbling in the fine arts. It seemed that "Turn where'er I may I find Thorns where roses bloomed before O'er the green fields of my soul; Where the springs of joy were found, Now the clouds of sorrow roll, Shading all the prospect round."