t. He charged the
Whigs with cunningly picking rough and ready characters, pioneer types,
for their appeal to the plain people--pioneer types who really
entertained monarchistic principles. There was already much talk that
Texas was being drawn toward the United States by the slavocracy. Well,
what of it? The main thing was to get Texas. What is this sanctimonious
talk in prose and verse in England about Texas? Douglas was very
contemptuous of all of this.

Fortescue took his way somehow to Chicago. Douglas and I traveled
together. The first thing that Douglas sought to do was to look into the
evidence as to the murder of Zoe, and this with reference to Fortescue's
possible part in it. To this end Douglas sought the assistance of Mr.
Williams. Though he kept a law office, his larger interests were real
estate dealings. But he dropped everything to assist Douglas and me in
arriving at the truth. We went to the jail and saw the half-breed who
was charged with killing Zoe. The state's attorney had the half-breed's
confession. Though he was half insane from drink when he did the deed,
the prosecutor intended to ask for the death penalty. He was a
half-breed!

We intended to look up the witnesses, to learn from them the
circumstances which attended the murder. The prosecutor, however, was
disinclined to let us do this, and refused to give us their names. He
stood on a matter of pride that he had the case in hand himself and had
procured the confession. Douglas seemed to think it was unnecessary to
pursue the matter, and that was Mr. Williams' attitude. In the hurry of
these hours, dinner time having arrived too, we got into a haze--at
least I did--about getting anything more definite. Douglas thought that
the real question was the common-law marriage. If I wanted to prosecute
Fortescue for the murder I could do it any time. In the meanwhile
Fortescue would have to prove the marriage in order to derive any
benefit from Zoe's death.

We asked Fortescue what evidence he had of this marriage. "For one thing
this," he said, bringing forth a ring which had the words, "to my
husband Henry from Zoe" and the date engraved in it. Douglas wished
Fortescue to produce the witnesses who were present at the marriage.
This Fortescue refused to do. He became suddenly stubborn, almost
sullen. In a bold way he said to us: "If you are not satisfied with
this, I'll prove my case." "You will have to do that anyway," said
Douglas, "and perhaps