I'm about to put my head in the lion's mouth; and in case you
don't hear from me again, say within three months, this is to
ask you to look for my bones. I'm starting out to nail a
thousand-to-one shot. Working a hunch for the biggest clean-up
we ever made. I'm going into the mountains to find a deaf mute
Negro who raises the finest horses I've ever seen. Do you get
that? No white man has gone into that valley; at least, no one
has come out talking. But I'm going to bring something with me.
If I don't come out it'll be because I've been knocked on the
head inside the valley. I'm not telling any one around here
where I'm bound, but I've made inquiries, and this is what I
gather: No one is interested in the mute's valley simply
because it's so far away. The mute doesn't bother them and they
won't bother him. That's the main reason for letting him alone.
The other reasons are that he's suspected of being a bad actor.
But the distance is the chief thing that fences people away.
The straight cut is bad going. The better way around is a slow
journey. It leads west out of Lukin and down into the valley of
the Girard River; then along the Girard to its headwaters. Then
through the mountains again to the only entrance to the valley.
I'm telling you all this so that you'll know what you may have
ahead of you. If I'm mum for three months come straight for
Lukin; go to a telegraph operator named Ruth Manning, and tell
her that you've come to get track of me. She'll give you the
names of the best dozen men in Lukin, and you start for the
valley with the posse.
Around Lukin they have a sort of foggy fear of the valley, bad
medicine, they call it.
I have a hard game ahead of me and I'm going to stack the
cards. I've got to get into the Garden by a trick and get out
again the same way. I start this afternoon.
I've got a horse and a pack mule, and I'm going to try my hand
at camping out. If I come back it will be on something that
will carry both the pack and me, I think, and it won't take
long to make the trip. Our days of being rich for ten days and
poor for thirty will be over.
Hold yourself ready; sharp at the end of ninety days, come West
if I'm still silent.
As ever,