"The Postmaster died, and had been in his grave time sufficient to allow his wife an opportunity of straightening his affairs. She was in the act of overhauling a mass of papers belonging to her husband's business when she encountered the letter of Colonel Ewing. A woman's perceptions are keen and quick, and the tender emotions which were begotten in her mind were but the responses of her better nature. Her sympathy yearned for one of her own sex, and she could do no more than proclaim the story to the world. Accordingly she sent the letter to the editor of the Lancaster _Intelligence_, and therein it was published. "Newspapers of limited circulation may not revolutionize matters of great importance, but they have their sphere in detail, and when the aggregate is summed they accomplish more than the mighty engines of larger mediums. "It was so in this case--the Lancaster paper was about issuing an extra for temperance purposes, and this letter happened to go into the forme to help 'fill up,' as poor printers sometimes express it. The Lancaster office was not poor, but the foreman did 'fill up' with the Ewing letter. Rev. Samuel Bowman, of Wilkes-Barre, by chance saw a copy. He knew the Slocums, and the entire history of the valley as it was given by tradition. "He was not present in the valley at the time, but {44} his heart warmed for the scenes and associations of early times in Wyoming. He mailed one of the papers to a Slocum, a brother of the captive girl, and the effect produced was as if by magic. Everybody was acquainted with the history of Frances, and all were interested in her fate. Sixty years had gone by since she was carried away, an innocent girl, and now the world had found the lost one. "There was one mark which could not be mistaken--little Frances when a child had played with a brother in the blacksmith's shop, and by a careless blow from the latter a finger was crushed in such a manner that it never regained its original form. "Mr. Isaac Slocum, accompanied by a sister and brother, sought an interview with the tanned woman, through the aid of an interpreter, and the first question asked, after an examination of the finger, was: 'How came that finger jambed?' The reply was convincing and conclusive: 'My brother struck it with a hammer in the shop, a long time ago, before I was carried away.' "Here then at last, by this unmistakable token, the lost was found. Her memory proved to be unerring; the details of events sixty years old were perfect, and given in such a manner as to awaken in the hearts of the Slocum family warm emotions for the withered old woman. Her life, although rude, had been a happy one, and no inducements were strong enough to persuade her to leave the camp-fires of her adoption.