AS I look back on that day in Nome and recall the sensation created in the little mining camp when the paper containing the story of Swiftwater’s perfidy was circulated abroad among the people, I am tempted to wonder if the duplicate or parallel of Swiftwater’s enormities at this time can be found in all the annals of this great Northwestern country. The Times’ story seemed, even to those like myself, who knew something of Swiftwater’s character, to be almost incredible, and for my part it was several hours before I realized, in a dumb unfeeling sort of a way, that Swiftwater had absolutely stolen his own sister’s child--Kitty Brandon--a girl not more than sixteen years old, had eloped with her, committed bigamy by marrying her in Chehalis, Wash., and at the same time had deserted his wife and left her penniless in Washington, D. C. It was long after nightfall as I sat in my room, the baby sound asleep in his little crib, the nurse gone for the night, and I had read The Times’ story about Swiftwater and Kitty over the twentieth time, that I felt the real force of the shame and scandal which the miner had placed about himself and Bera, and which did not even leave me and my little grandson, Clifford, outside of its dark and forbidding pall. All that night I lay awake and wondered how in Heaven’s name I could get word to Bera--or if she had received a telegram from friends in Seattle and the blow had killed her--or whether she was then on her way West, or whatever fate had befallen her. I knew little about Swiftwater’s business affairs just at that time except that he had gone to Washington in the hope of furthering his mining ventures in the North and had taken Bera with him. Then I remembered that in his letters to me and telegrams urging me to join him at Nome he had spoken about having raised considerable money and was able to pay his debt to me and lift me out of the mire of toil and drudgery in Alaska, in which I had sojourned for so many months. All that night I neither slept nor rested. It seemed to me at times as if my head would split into a thousand pieces with the thought of Swiftwater’s treachery to Bera and myself. Then I realized the utter futility and helplessness of a woman situated as I was in Nome, absolutely unable to get a telegram or quick letter to Bera or to hear from her telling me of her condition. For aught I knew, she might have been deathly sick, cared for only by strangers or left destitute at some place in the East and without any means whatever of righting herself. It seems to me, now when I think of that all night’s vigil in the little hotel in Nome, that Providence must have been watching over me, that I did not lose my reason. At last I found that unless I went to work doing something, I would sure go crazy, and then I started to get work, first borrowing some money, which I sent out by mail the next day to Bera at her last address.