The whole thing seemed to me vulgar, and the people I had to associate with were very coarse. But what could I do? Anything was better than being Campbell’s daughter, and the circus gave me a living at the least. Chapter the Fifteenth I DID not remain long with the circus—not more than four or five months, I think—before Campbell found out where I was and came after me. If the manager had been a man of any courage, I should have refused to go with Campbell. But when Campbell threatened him with all sorts of lawsuits and prosecutions, he agreed to discharge me. Even then I should not have gone with Campbell if I could have got the money due me for my riding. But after the first month the manager had paid me almost nothing, on the plea of bad business (though his tent was always packed), and as he was paying all my expenses except for my plain clothes, I hadn’t pressed him for the money. He owed me nearly two hundred dollars when Campbell came, and I asked him for it, meaning to run away and find some other employment. But Campbell told him he was my father and my guardian, and that the money must be paid to him and not to me. The manager weakly yielded, and so I hadn’t enough money even to pay a railroad fare. Under the circumstances, there was nothing for me to do but go with Campbell. He had sold the ranch, and was now keeping a big wholesale store in the city of Austin. He had built a very big house, and had a great many negro servants in it. Soon after I got to Austin, Campbell’s store was burned, and I thought at first that he was ruined. But he seemed richer after that than ever. My mother told me it was the insurance money, and a good many people used to think he had burned the store himself. There was a lawsuit about it, but Campbell won. One day I concluded to have a talk with him. I asked him why he wanted to keep me with him, and why he wouldn’t give me the money I had earned in the circus, and let me go away. He laughed at me, and told me it was because he didn’t choose to have his daughter riding in a circus. So I got no satisfaction out of him then. But in the letter he sent me in the bundle of papers that Colonel Kilgariff brought me, he explained the matter. It was because he feared I would get somebody else to be my guardian, and any new guardian would come upon him for the stocks and bonds my father had given me. Campbell had sold all of them that he could, and was using the money himself.