I, myself, escorted the men out on the dump and helped them pick up a gunny sack full of the richest bits of ore we could find. When they had filled their sack, I waved them pleasantly on their way. “Don’t believe all you see,” I said. “I’m not half as bad as in the book.” A couple of years later the motion picture came to Buena Vista and my friends, Joe Dewar and Lucille Frazier, asked me to motor down with them to see it. They were to keep our going a secret, I would wear a veil, dress differently than usual, and sit in the back of the theater so that no one would recognize me. “That’s a date, then,” Joe said. “We’ll be up for you Thursday evening.” But when Thursday arrived, I did not have the courage to go through with the plan. Here was I, a lonely, poverty-stricken old woman with only a sacred trust left to me out of all the world, a trust that most people spoke of as an ‘obsession’ or a ‘fixation.’ Yet now I must go to see what the world thought of me as a national beauty, a scandalous home-wrecker and a luxury-loving doll. I could not face it. If I had sinned, I had paid a sufficiently high price for my sins without deliberately giving myself further heartache. I sent down a message to the village that I could not go. Meanwhile, shortly after the premiere of the movie in Denver, I saw Father Horgan approaching with two men. When anybody knocked at my cabin, I always peeked out of the window to see who was there before admitting them. As I raised the burlap curtain sewed in heavy stitches of twine and recognized him, I asked: “Whom have you got with you?” “Two lawyers from Denver who want to talk to you about signing a paper—a business matter.” “Very well,” I said. “Since you brought them—you know I don’t like strangers. But I’ll see them for your sake.” They entered and sat down in my humble quarters. I always kept the cabin very neat with a small shrine fastened to the far wall, my boxes, table and bed arranged around the room and the stove near the lean-to. It was December and very cold. They unfastened their coats and broached their offer by saying: “How would you like to make $50,000?” “You want to lease the Matchless?” “No. We think your character has been damaged in the motion picture founded on your life and that you should sue for libel.” “But I haven’t seen the movie—I can’t testify to that—” “Well, we have. And legally you have a very strong case.” So legally I had a very strong case? I knew something about litigation—my whole association with Tabor had been involved in law suits. Most of them, to be sure, were suits about mining claims but there was also the secret Durango divorce suit and the legal battle with Bill Bush. No good had ever come out of all that except fees to the lawyers—neither of us had gained anything in money or in reputation. “But I do not need $50,000,” I replied. “The Matchless will soon make many times that sum. But thank you very much indeed for your kindness and interest.”