SWIFTWATER BILL GATES is back.”

One morning in Seattle months after Bera and I had set up a little housekeeping establishment in Seattle, I picked up the Saturday evening edition of The Times and almost dropped over in my chair when I saw headlines in the paper as shown in the foregoing.

What had been Swiftwater Bill’s fortune in all those months, I knew not, but the fact as stated in the paper that he had returned from Alaska was sufficient for me.

Bera said: “Mama, I don’t know any reason why you should fuss around about Swiftwater.”

“Never mind me,” said I, “I’ll find him, my dear, just to see what he has to say for himself.”

Down to the Hotel Northern, then the Butler, the Rainier-Grand and the Stevens and all the rest I went and searched the registers without avail. As I remember now, it took me the greater part of a day to cover all the ground.

Finally, by a curious chance I located Swiftwater at the Victoria Hotel. I waited until the next morning and then went to the Victoria and asked for Gates.

Swiftwater, the clerk said, was out—had not been seen but once since his arrival.

I am not going to say whether or not it was the humor of the situation or the bitter resentment I bore toward him that led me to tramp up three flights of stairs to the little parlor on the landing close to Swiftwater’s room, and to wait there ten hours at a stretch—until 1:10 in the morning. Then I went home, only to return at 8 o’clock the next day.

“Mr. Gates is in his room, but he is asleep,” said the clerk.

“I am Mrs. Beebe, his mother-in-law, and I want to see him now and I shall go direct to his room. You can go with me if you desire,” said I. The little clerk scanned me carefully and then said, “Very well.” We went upstairs together.

The clerk rapped on the door twice. There was no answer.

“I guess he’s out,” said the boy.

“Knock again—good and loud,” I commanded.

The boy rapped and just then the door opened a tiny way—about an inch, I guess, but through that little crack I saw the eye and part of the curling black moustache of Swiftwater Bill.

Then I threw myself against the door and walked in.

I wish I could tell you how funny was Swiftwater’s apparition, as, clad only in his white night robe, he jumped into bed, pulling the covers over his head.

This was the first time that Swiftwater had seen me since he left me in Dawson alone and unprotected, to find means as best I could to provide shelter and sustenance for his little baby boy, Clifford.

In spite of myself, I laughed, forgetting all of the long months that we had waited for some sign of Swiftwater and an indication of his desire to do what was right by his own two little babies.

“Coward,” I said, still laughing. “You know you deserve to be shot.”

No answer from Swiftwater, whose body was completely covered up by bed clothes.

Now, most men and most women will admire a MAN, but a cur and a coward are universally despised.

As I looked at that huddled up mass of humanity underneath the white bedspread, my heart rose in rage. The contempt I felt for him is beyond all expression.

“Come out of that, Bill,” said I. “I have no gun!”

After a while, Swiftwater poked his head from beneath the bed clothes and showed a blanched face covered with a three weeks’ old growth of black beard. I told him to dress and I would wait outside. In a few minutes Swiftwater emerged and there stood a man who had commanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in money and gold in Alaska, looking just exactly as if he had dropped from the brake-beam of a Northern Pacific freight train and had walked his way into Seattle. He was clad in a dirty sack coat, that shone like a mirror, with brown striped trousers, an old brown derby hat and shoes that were out at the sole and side.

“Mrs. Beebe,” said Swiftwater in a trembling voice, “I am all in. If you will not have me arrested, but will give me a chance, I’ll soon provide for the babies and Bera.”

Swiftwater pleaded as if for his life. He said that he could get money in San Francisco from a man who had offered to back him in a new scheme in the Tanana country.

There was I with the two little boys and Bera all on my hands. I told Swiftwater that I would do nothing for him, but that I would forego having him put behind steel bars until I had made up my mind just what course I should take.

The next night, there was a knock at our door about 3 o’clock in the morning. Bera slept in the front room of our little two-room apartment and I in the other with the babies. I went to the door—there stood Swiftwater.

“Mrs. Beebe,” he said, “I have no place to sleep tonight. If you will let me lie down on the floor, so that I can get a little sleep, I will get up early tomorrow morning and not bother you.”

I told Bera to come into my room and I let Swiftwater into the kitchen, where I gave him a comforter on which to lie. The next morning, after Bera had gone, I prepared Swiftwater’s breakfast. The man was in rags, almost. I made him take a bath, while I washed his underclothes, and then I went out and bought him a new pair of socks and gave him money with which to buy a new hat.

The next day Swiftwater went to San Francisco on money I furnished him after I had pawned my diamonds with one of the best jewelry houses in Seattle.

Why? Well, because Swiftwater had made me believe that he had another chance in the Tanana and that his friends in San Francisco, having faith in his judgment as a miner—whatever may be said of Swiftwater, he was known throughout the North as an expert miner—had raised a large sum with which to grubstake him.

I will say this for Swiftwater: that he gave me a contract providing that he should pay what he owed me and give me an interest in such mines as he would locate in the Tanana country. And then he went away.