lend me his aid? Surely my guardian spirit. Again, when
in Denver, in the Denver of old times, before it had grown into anything
like the city it is now, I was seized with a severe attack of dysentery,
and the owner of the hotel in which I was staying, believing it to be
cholera, turned me, weak and faint as I was, into the street. I tried
everywhere to get shelter; the ghastly pallor and emaciation of my
countenance went against me--no one, not even by dint of bribing, for I
was then well off, would take me in. At last, completely overcome by
exhaustion, I sank down in the street, where, in all probability, I
should have remained all night, had not a negro suddenly come up to me,
and, with a sympathetic expression in his face, asked if he could help
me. "I passed you some time ago," he said, "and noticed how ill you
looked, but I did not like to speak to you for fear you might resent it,
but I had not got far before I felt compelled to turn back. I tried to
resist this impulse, but it was no good. What ails you?" I told him. For
a moment or so he was silent, and then, his face brightening up, he
exclaimed, "I think I can help you. Come along with me," and, helping me
gently to my feet, he conducted me to his own house, not a very grand
one, it is true, but scrupulously clean and well conducted, and I
remained there until I was thoroughly sound and fit. The negro is not as
a rule a creature of impulse, and here again I felt that I owed my
preservation to the kindly interference of my guardian spirit.

Thrice I have been nearly drowned, and on both occasions saved as by a
miracle, or, in other words, by my attendant guardian spirit. Once, when
I was bathing alone in a Scotch loch and had swum out some considerable
distance, I suddenly became exhausted, and realised with terror that it
was quite impossible for me to regain the shore. I was making a last
futile effort to strike out, when something came bobbing up against me.
It was an oar! Whence it had come Heaven alone knew, for Heaven alone
could have sent it. Leaning my chin lightly on it and propelling myself
gently with my limbs, I had no difficulty in keeping afloat, and
eventually reached the land in safety. The scene of my next miraculous
rescue from drowning was a river. In diving into the water off a boat, I
got my legs entangled in a thick undergrowth of weeds. Frantically
struggling to get free and realising only too acutely the seriousness of
my position, for