“Through certain channels then open to me I easily ascertained that, after a career of deep dissipation, James W----had committed a bold forgery; that in some way the money had been paid, and the affair quashed. Other things came to my ears, all strongly confirmatory of my expectations about him. About eighteen months later his mother died, and his father settled all his business and went to Europe; nearly everyone supposing, in the meantime, that the son had suddenly started, when he was first missed from his accustomed haunts, on a journey to Central Asia, and that it would be months before he could hear this sad news. “Later again, as the Union Pacific train, on which I was a passenger, stopped at the Green River station, I saw on the platform, evidently waiting to join us, a father and daughter. The former was a fine specimen of the better class of plainsmen--six feet two, and of powerful build--his eyes large and blue, his long hair and full beard light-colored, and his expression kindness itself. The young girl was about eighteen, slender and delicate, and altogether charming--one of those beautiful, tender, clinging young creatures sometimes found on the frontier, like the delicate wild flowers in the cañons. They were going to Chicago; and having been commended to Major G---- by some mutual acquaintances, I passed much time in his company, and we became excellent friends. He had been a widower for a number of years, and was deeply devoted to his pretty Anita, who in her turn seemed to adore him. I could not help thinking that she was ill-fitted to meet the cares of life, and that there was a look in her lovely eyes that suggested a rare capacity for suffering. She had never been east of the Missouri before, and the major told me that after a short stay in Chicago, they were going to live on a ranch which he had bought in the Wet Mountain Valley. He had been a noted hunter and Indian fighter in the West, and bore the scars of more than one struggle with wild beast and wilder man. I remained with them one day in Chicago, and remember Anita’s childish delight in a bouquet of flowers which I gave her, when I called at the hotel to say good-bye, and her waving her handkerchief to me as I drove off to the station, and she stood on the balcony leaning on her father’s shoulder. “Chance brought me, within six or eight months, to the region south of the Arkansas, and I took a trip on the Wet Mountains with an old Mexican called Manuel. One day it occurred to me that we could not be far from my friend’s location; so I asked Manuel if we could not cross the range and go down into the valley, and if he knew where Major G---- lived.