e has explained that
unfortunate incident of the horse. It was a bit of offhand folly born of
an anxious moment."

"But the man wants to marry me."

"He said nothing of such a purpose."

"He will be in no hurry about that," said Bim. "He is a shrewd operator.
Every one hates him. They say that he knew what was coming when he sold
out."

That evening Bim wrote a long letter to Samson Traylor telling of the
evil days which had come to them. This letter, now in the possession of a
great grandson of Samson and Sarah Traylor, had a singular history. It
reached the man to whom it was addressed in the summer of 1844. It was
found with many others that summer in Tazewell County under a barn which
its owner was removing. It brought to mind the robbery of the stage from
Chicago, south of the sycamore woods, in the autumn of '37, by a man who
had ridden with the driver from Chicago and who, it was thought, had been
in collusion with him. A curious feature of the robbery had been revealed
by the discovery of the mail sack. It was unopened, its contents
undisturbed, its rusty padlock still in place. The perpetrator of the
crime had not soiled his person with any visible evidence of guilt and so
was never apprehended.

Then for a time Bim entered upon great trials. Jack Kelso weakened.
Burning with fever, his mind wandered in the pleasant paths he loved and
saw in its fancy the deeds of Ajax and Achilles and the topless towers of
Illium and came not back again to the vulgar and prosaic details of life.
The girl knew not what to do. A funeral was a costly thing. She had no
money. The Kinzies had gone on a hunting trip in Wisconsin. Mrs. Hubbard
was ill and the Kelsos already much in her debt. Mr. Lionel Davis came.

He was a good-looking young man of twenty-nine, those days, rather stout
and of middle stature with dark hair and eyes. He was dressed in the
height of fashion. He used to boast that he had only one vice--diamonds.
But he had ceased to display them on his shirt-front or his fingers. He
carried them in his pockets and showed them by the glittering handful
to his friends. They had come to him through trading in land where they
were the accepted symbol of success and money was none too plentiful. He
had melted their settings and turned them into coin. The stones he kept
as a kind of surplus--a half hidden evidence of wealth and of superiority
to the temptation to vulgar display. Mr. Davis was a calculating,
masterful,