Extracts from letters to the mother:
DENVER, April 3, 1897
I have now been living several days in the same hotel with Jacob Fuller.
I have his scent; I could track him through ten divisions of infantry
and find him. I have often been near him and heard him talk. He owns a
good mine, and has a fair income from it; but he is not rich. He learned
mining in a good way--by working at it for wages. He is a cheerful
creature, and his forty-three years sit lightly upon him; he could pass
for a younger man--say thirty-six or thirty-seven. He has never married
again--passes himself off for a widower. He stands well, is liked, is
popular, and has many friends. Even I feel a drawing toward him--the
paternal blood in me making its claim. How blind and unreasoning and
arbitrary are some of the laws of nature--the most of them, in fact!
My task is become hard now--you realize it? you comprehend, and make
allowances?--and the fire of it has cooled, more than I like to confess
to myself. But I will carry it out. Even with the pleasure paled, the
duty remains, and I will not spare him.
And for my help, a sharp resentment rises in me when I reflect that he
who committed that odious crime is the only one who has not suffered by
it. The lesson of it has manifestly reformed his character, and in
the change he is happy. He, the guilty party, is absolved from
all suffering; you, the innocent, are borne down with it. But be
comforted--he shall harvest his share.
SILVER GULCH, May 19
I placarded Form No. 1 at midnight of April 3; an hour later I slipped
Form No. 2 under his chamber door, notifying him to leave Denver at or
before 11.50 the night of the 14th.
Some late bird of a reporter stole one of my placards, then hunted the
town over and found the other one, and stole that. In this manner he
accomplished what the profession call a “scoop”--that is, he got a
valuable item, and saw to it that no other paper got it. And so his
paper--the principal one in the town--had it in glaring type on the
editorial page in the morning, followed by a Vesuvian opinion of our
wretch a column long, which wound up by adding a thousand dollars to our
reward on the paper's account! The journals out here know how to do the
noble thing--when there's business in it.
At breakfast I occupied my usual seat--selected because it afforded a
view of papa Fuller's face, and was near enough for me to hear the talk
that went on at his table. Seventy-five or a hundred people were in the
room, and all discussing that item, and saying they hoped the seeker
would find that rascal and remove the pollution of his presence from the
town--with a rail, or a bullet, or something.
When Fuller came in he had the Notice to Leave--folded up--in one hand,
and the newspaper in the other; and it gave me more than half a pang to
see him. His cheerfulness was all gone, and he looked old and pinched
and ashy. And then--only think of the things he had to listen to! Mamma,
he heard his own unsuspecting friends describe him with epithets and
characterizations drawn from the very dictionaries and phrase-books of
Satan's own authorized editions down below. And more than that, he had
to agree with the verdicts and applaud them. His applause tasted bitter
in his mouth, though; he could not disguise that from me; and it was
observable that his appetite was gone; he only nibbled; he couldn't eat.
Finally a man said,
“It is quite likely that that relative is in the room and hearing what
this town thinks of that unspeakable scoundrel. I hope so.”
Ah, dear, it was pitiful the way Fuller winced, and glanced around
scared! He couldn't endure any more, and got up and left.
During several days he gave out that he had bought a mine in Mexico, and
wanted to sell out and go down there as soon as he could, and give the
property his personal attention. He played his cards well; said he would
take $40,000--a quarter in cash, the rest in safe notes; but that as he
greatly needed money on account of his new purchase, he would diminish
his terms for cash in full, He sold out for $30,000. And then, what do
you think he did? He asked for greenbacks, and took them, saying the
man in Mexico was a New-Englander, with a head full of crotchets, and
preferred greenbacks to gold or drafts. People thought it queer, since a
draft on New York could produce greenbacks quite conveniently. There was
talk of this odd thing, but only for a day; that is as long as any topic
lasts in Denver.
I was watching, all the time. As soon as the sale was completed and the
money paid--which was on the 11th--I began to stick to Fuller's track
without dropping it for a moment. That night--no, 12th, for it was a
little past midnight--I tracked him to his room, which was four doors
from mine in the same hall; then I went back and put on my muddy
day-laborer disguise, darkened my complexion, and sat down in my room in
the gloom, with a gripsack handy, with a change in it, and my door ajar.
For I suspected that the bird would take wing now. In half an hour an
old woman passed by, carrying a grip; I caught the familiar whiff, and
followed with my grip, for it was Fuller. He left the hotel by a side
entrance, and at the corner he turned up an unfrequented street and
walked three blocks in a light rain and a heavy darkness, and got into
a two-horse hack, which, of course, was waiting for him by appointment.
I took a seat (uninvited) on the trunk platform behind, and we drove
briskly off. We drove ten miles, and the hack stopped at a way station
and was discharged. Fuller got out and took a seat on a barrow under
the awning, as far as he could get from the light; I went inside, and
watched the ticket-office. Fuller bought no ticket; I bought none.
Presently the train came along, and he boarded a car; I entered the same
car at the other end, and came down the aisle and took the seat behind
him. When he paid the conductor and named his objective point, I dropped
back several seats, while the conductor was changing a bill, and when he
came to me I paid to the same place--about a hundred miles westward.
From that time for a week on end he led me a dance. He travelled here and
there and yonder--always on a general westward trend--but he was not a
woman after the first day. He was a laborer, like myself, and wore bushy
false whiskers. His outfit was perfect, and he could do the character
without thinking about it, for he had served the trade for wages. His
nearest friend could not have recognized him. At last he located himself
here, the obscurest little mountain camp in Montana; he has a shanty,
and goes out prospecting daily; is gone all day, and avoids society.
I am living at a miner's boarding-house, and it is an awful place: the
bunks, the food, the dirt--everything.
We have been here four weeks, and in that time I have seen him but
once; but every night I go over his track and post myself. As soon as he
engaged a shanty here I went to a town fifty miles away and telegraphed
that Denver hotel to keep my baggage till I should send for it. I need
nothing here but a change of army shirts, and I brought that with me.
SILVER GULCH, June 12.
The Denver episode has never found its way here, I think. I know the
most of the men in camp, and they have never referred to it, at least
in my hearing. Fuller doubtless feels quite safe in these conditions. He
has located a claim, two miles away, in an out-of-the-way place in the
mountains; it promises very well, and he is working it diligently. Ah,
but the change in him! He never smiles, and he keeps quite to himself,
consorting with no one--he who was so fond of company and so cheery
only two months ago. I have seen him passing along several times
recently--drooping, forlorn, the spring gone from his step, a pathetic
figure. He calls himself David Wilson.
I can trust him to remain here until we disturb him. Since you insist, I
will banish him again, but I do not see how he can be unhappier than he
already is. I will go hack to Denver and treat myself to a little season
of comfort, and edible food, and endurable beds, and bodily decency;
then I will fetch my things, and notify poor papa Wilson to move on.
DENVER, June 19.
They miss him here. They all hope he is prospering in Mexico, and they
do not say it just with their mouths, but out of their hearts. You know
you can always tell. I am loitering here overlong, I confess it. But if
you were in my place you would have charity for me. Yes, I know what you
will say, and you are right: if I were in your place, and carried your
scalding memories in my heart--