wife. Well-nigh distracted, a mother sped across the continent to the
Pacific, there to await the coming of her son's remains.

From the night of Walter Foster's disappearance at Carquinez no word of
his existence came to give her hope, no trace of his movements until,
late in August, there was brought to her the cabled message:

"Alive, well, but in trouble. Have written."

And this was headed Yokohama. Not until October did that longed-for,
prayed-for letter come,--a selfish letter, since it gave no really
adequate excuse for the long weeks of silence, and only told that the
boy had been in hiding, almost in terror of his life. While still dazed
by the shock of the fire and smarting from his burns, wrote Walter, he
had wandered from the cars at Port Costa. He had encountered "most
uncongenial persons," he said, among the recruits, and never realizing
that it was desertion, war-time desertion at that, had determined to get
back to Sacramento and join some other command. Yes. There was another
reason, but--one "mother couldn't appreciate." Unknown to all but one of
his comrades on the train, he had abundant money, realized from the sale
of horses and cattle at the ranch. It was in a buckskin belt about his
waist, and this money bought him "friends" who took him by water to
Sacramento, found him secret lodgings, procured suitable clothing, and
later spirited him off to San Francisco.

But these money-bought friends showed the cloven hoof, threatened to
give him over to the military authorities to be tried for his life
unless he would pay a heavy sum. They had him virtually a prisoner. He
could only stir abroad at night, and then in company with his jailers.

There was a man, he wrote, who had a grudge against him, a man
discharged from the ranch, who followed him to Denver and enlisted in
the same party, a man he was most anxious to get rid of, and the first
thing he knew that fellow, who, he supposed, had gone on to Manila,
turned up in disguise and joined forces with his tormentors. That drove
him to desperation, nerved him to one sublime effort, and one night he
broke away and ran. He was fleet of foot, they were heavy with drink,
and he dodged them among the wharves and piers, took refuge on a coast
steamer, and found himself two days later at Portland.

Here he bethought him of an old friend, and succeeded in finding a man
he well knew he could trust, despite his mother's old dislike for him, a
man who knew