One of the partners was a big man who always wore an enormous white ten-gallon hat and looked like a Western sheriff. He was a picturesque figure in a common way. Generously, he fell into the habit of loaning Silver riding horses, especially a spirited seventeen-hand cream gelding which would carry her thundering up Harrison Avenue with a speed to delight her romantic fancy. It was natural that she should be grateful and linger after the ride, talking horseflesh in a friendly way. Nothing untoward about this arrangement occurred to me since the man was old enough to be a responsible citizen. He had known her from the time she was a little girl trudging up and down Little Stray Horse Gulch with a gunny sack over her shoulder, hauling mail and supplies. All the old-timers made it a point to be kind to her—like Big Jim McDonald who was running the Monarch mine up above us and frequently gave her a lift in his buggy, or like Henry Butler, editor of the _Herald-Democrat_, who loaned her a typewriter and helped her with her writing. I was not even suspicious until it was too late. When the village gossip reached my ears, I fell into a soft moaning but then quickly denied the idea to my informant as impossible. But when I was by myself, I moaned aloud. For years, my fond hopes had built such castles-in-Spain for Silver—with her dark prettiness and her unusual talent, no future could be too roseate for her—and now I was beside myself with worry. The Matchless had been mortgaged again, this time for $9,000 with an interest rate of 8%, and I was having more trouble with the lessees. There was no money with which to send Silver away. “What course should I take?” I asked myself in desperation. Before I could come to any decision, matters gathered to a drastic head. A few nights later, Silver set off for an Easter Monday hall in a lovely silk dress I had made her and a fur-trimmed coat (since at 10,000 feet altitude the spring nights are like icy winter). The party was to be given for the nice young people of the town. She went with two boys who were sons of substantial Leadville families. But when Silver came in, it was eight-o-clock in the morning and she was drunk. Her dress was disheveled and she had no coat. The lovely blue silk dress was torn and dirty. And she was alone! “Silver, what on earth has happened?” I cried. But she was too incoherent for me to make head or tail of her story. Fearful that she would catch pneumonia from exposure, I stirred up the fire in the stove and got the temperature of the cabin to the perspiring point. I put her to bed and she was soon sleeping it off. But when I went to town for the mail, the news was all over town—a sordid story involving a saloon keeper. In a flash, my mind was made up.