Mr. William Anderson,

Palo Alto, California:

Missed train; meet you same place four o'clock.

Jack.

Pueblo, Colo.

My Dear Jack:

As I commence this letter, old man, I feel very much like a prisoner with an excellent case of circumstantial evidence against him, striving to vindicate himself, and at the same time knowing the task to be an extremely difficult one.

Now, you have doubtless wondered why I didn't live up to the mutual agreement, didn't let you know immediately of anything which turned up to prevent me from doing so, and, strangest of all, why I haven't written you long before this.

Now, Jack, I am going to try to explain, although it is a mighty hard thing to do on paper, but before I begin, I want to remind you that while you and I have peddled a goodly portion of the warm oxygen together, that I have always been "on the square" with you, as I trust you have with me: so don't think that I've taken this from one of last century's novels, for every word of it is gospel truth, so help me God!

I will begin with the minor things leading up to the climax and grand finale, so that you can more fully comprehend it. You see, old man, I went back to Dakota with the purpose of earning money and saving it. I surely earned it with the sweat of my brow, as the "Good Book" says, but it was the old, old story. It slipped through my fingers. Well, I went from Arlington to Huron. Work then was beginning to get rather scarce, but I went to a boarding place, and by a straightforward story secured board in advance. Then, for a time, I managed to get just about enough work to liquidate my weekly board bills. Finally the thing petered out about altogether, but I was given credit for a week. During that week of hanging around I waxed loquacious, and revealed a little of my past history. That made it good for another week. Then I told them that I expected money from home, which I did. I then wrote for twenty-five dollars, which I received in company with a lengthy sermon, and paid fifteen dollars out for board, leaving me with a miserable little ten dollar bill.

Now, in the good old halcyon days at the Academy we used to convert our language phonographs into roulette wheels, and in recreation hours—and not infrequently in study hours—gamble for requisitions. We agreed that all the fellows who should be "ousted" from the Academy should be paid cash, if winner, as the "reqs" would be useless to them.

Our room was raided by upper class men one day, and the thing found out, but as the midshipman in charge was certain of "bilging" himself, he didn't report us, but simply gave us unofficial hell instead. Well, when the game was broken up, a certain Rogers of Cincinnati, Ohio, was in debt to yours truly to the extent of twenty-five dollars. I made a hurried departure from Annapolis, and furthermore I didn't care to mention such a then trifling thing to Rogers, as I had between five and six hundred dollars.

Well, you know how we arranged it—went to Pittsburg, then to Chicago, and due principally to your good management, we never got to the stage where I had to ask for it. Every letter Hardin wrote me how he really believed Rogers meant to pay, and all that sort of thing. To make a long story brief, Rogers never was man enough to offer to close the little "debt of honor," and I was too proud to ask him. When leaving Huron, though, I wrote him a letter asking him to send it, in part or in full, to Omaha, Nebraska; I depended on his honor and started out. Went to Sioux City, Iowa, on a cattle pass and left most of my capital there. When I took an account of my coin, found that I possessed less than three dollars, and the fare to Omaha was three dollars and fifteen cents. I went to the Bureau of Information, and found that I could go to Blair, Neb., for amount on hand. Accordingly, I paid passage to Blair, trusting to luck to catch a freight train out of Blair, and I figured that even if this failed I could walk it, the distance being only twenty-four miles.

Arriving at Blair, broke, I slept in the depot over-night—Christmas Eve—think of it! Woke up Christmas Day without a cent, and feeling like the wrath of God. Oh, yes, it was a merry, merry Christmas. Finding that no freight trains were running on account of holiday. I soliloquized, "Well, William B. Anderson, ex-midshipman, United States Navy, it's up to you to make the best of your way via 'the hoof' to Omaha, so get thee busy at once."

I knew, or thought I knew, I would find a money order for twenty-five dollars there. Arrived in Omaha about dusk, footsore and weary, and went at once to the P. O., only to find to my intense anger and chagrin that it was "Closed on Account of Holiday."

I marched on the double quick to a Western Union Telegraph office, and scribbled a lengthy telegram for funds. I was told that it would have to be "O. K.'d" by the manager before it could be sent Collect—so I waited three hours or thereabouts before that personage finally materialized. The long wait didn't tend to calm my general feelings of irascibility. I handed the form to him, and after half scrutinizing it, he told me that he couldn't pass on it and have the risk of its not making good at the other end, but if I would cut out about three-fourths of it, he would. Now, I knew that every single little word was absolutely necessary, and tried to reason with him, but to no end. Then all the bad, irascible, ruffled feelings that had accumulated within me for the last couple of days surged forth, and I read the riot act to him as it had never been read before. I never thought I was capable of such a supply of inventive. It did no good, of course, and ended in my being shown the door by the uniformed attendant.

I went to the Postal Telegraph with almost the identical result, so broke, but not in spirit, I walked the streets till morning, and then sat in a saloon till business opened up and I could get my bearings. I went to the Post Office as soon as it opened, asked for my mail, but received a brief "Nothing." I went to an employment agency and asked for a job in a restaurant, having had nothing to appease my hunger for more than a day. Told him I'd make good when I got paid. He wouldn't do business on those grounds, but said he had received a 'phone call for a man to beat carpets just for the day, and that if I wanted that, he wouldn't charge me anything. I wanted it all right. I reasoned, "Well, within two weeks I'll be attending college, but Jack and I did it once when we were up against it, so it's good enough for me now and nobody need ever know."

I went to the address handed me, a private family of the middle class, and applied. A good looking young woman brought me a line and a couple of carpet beaters, and I smiled as I thought of the time you and I used to utilize them. At noon she showed me where to wash, invited me to lunch, and really treated me elegantly. She asked me my name, and a whole lot more, and then told me that she and her mother rather liked my looks, and wished I'd stay and sleep in the vacant house to which they intended moving, and help the men transfer the different articles from one house to another. I had intended staying the one day only, thus getting sufficient to send home for outfit and fare to Palo Alto, but she didn't understand my case, of course. She thought she was doing me a favor, and as she "looked awfully good to me," I stayed, and that's really the beginning of the story proper, the former part being merely prelude.

At night the young woman's husband came home. He's head broker for one of the largest packing houses, and she told him about it. He was a little insignificant runt with a glass eye, and the tip of his olfactory organ betokened more than a speaking acquaintance with beverages of an alcoholic nature. He was pleasant at first, but he by no means approved of his wife's interest in me. She probably regarded me as a mere child, but I liked to think otherwise. He stayed at home the next day "to help move" of course. He made several significant remarks, such as, "Your hands don't look like those of a laboring man," "You say you're from Richmond, Va., but you haven't much Southern accent." "It's funny one with your control of languages, and apparent education should be beating carpets." I knew he wasn't saying this to peddle my good qualities to his pretty little spouse, the shrimp, so I at once suspected that he possessed a streak for amateur detective work.

Well, I helped him move, and he watched me as a cat does a mouse, but I didn't blame him, as he had several articles of value among his stuff. We had most of the articles moved by night, but as things were strewn around in topsy-turvy fashion in the new house, he concluded to remain in the old apartments that night.

He sent me after two keys, for the front and back doors of the new house, and said he would pay me and dismiss me when I returned. I went to the locksmith's and got the two keys, but—well, you know how careless and absent minded I am, and when I returned I'll be damned if I could find but one of them—I had lost the other. Then he as much as told me that I had hidden the key or given it to an accomplice, so that I could go over and unlock the door of the new house and help myself, and that it strengthened his convictions all along that I didn't work for a living. That sure made me hot under the collar, and I got eloquent and told him that his theories were preposterous in the extreme, and that I was well aware of the fact that I was no Hercules, but if it were not for the kind treatment of his wife, I'd thrash him right there. I got warm and excited and reached in my pocket for my handkerchief to wipe away the perspiration. That little fool must have misunderstood my purpose, for then, old man, honest Injun, cross my heart, he ran over to the dresser, took a loaded revolver from the drawer, and fired. The bullet went through the glass back of me with a racket capable of waking the dead. His wife fainted, I rushed him, and hit him a left hook that would have broken any punching machine manufactured.

This sounds rather boastful, considering my slight build, but I was in a heat, and it meant a whole lot to me how hard I hit him. That cowardly whelp then let out a blood curdling yell, and went down, and I realized what a fix I was in. The shot and yell must have attracted the attention of passing pedestrians, for they all gathered in front of the house. Not wishing my name to be given so much publicity in an affair of that calibre, I took the bunch of letters in my inside pocket, went over to the range and threw them in, just as a cop appeared on the scene. Seeing the state of things, the cop hit me over the head with his nightstick, and after viewing at close range planets, heavenly satellites and other decorations of the firmament, I must have collapsed; when I revived, I had on a pair of handcuffs, and the little measly runt was concluding his one-sided story.

Well, then, for the first time in my life, but not the last, as you will see later, I was arrested. Went up before the judge next A.M., and, to condense my story, the kernel of the judge's remarks to me was that I looked young and unlike a criminal, but as I had burned my letters, thereby admitting carrying a fictitious name, and was also in a strange town with no visible means of support, he would have to convict me of vagrancy, and concluded his remarks by saying that he hoped it would teach me a lesson. Thirty days! My God! don't attempt to imagine my feelings.

Well, there's a whole lot more I could tell you, but that's the principal part, and improbable as it all sounds, that's the true story of the successive links of evidence which resolved themselves into the complete chain of circumstantial evidence which kept me away from Palo Alto. I had a crumpled postal in my pocket, and penciled on it "Don't condemn me, Jack, until you hear my story." and begged a negro to mail to you for me. I addressed it to you at Palo Alto, California, but I doubt if you ever received it, as when I got out a couple of weeks later, your letter awaited me at the Post Office, forwarded from Huron, and you didn't say anything about having received the postal card.

Well, the judge visited me during my confinement, and drew out of me my real name and address, but none of my past history or future plans, and he at once surmised that I was some kid who had rambled from home and mother, so he wrote my father a lengthy letter, the tenor of which was that a boy claiming to be his son was confined in that city on a charge of vagrancy, and that while the boy was bright and intelligent, he was most assuredly on the wrong path of life. He believed that a kindly interest by my parents, manifested at this time, would work wonders in transforming me into a future good and useful citizen. He further added that his advice would be to send either my railroad ticket home, or sufficient capital to start me out on some new project, as he really believed the young man meant well. Pending an answer to his letter he would keep me apart from the toughs and general habituÉs of the bull pen.

Now he read this note to me, and while it appealed to my sense of humor, I couldn't imagine what would happen if he sent it, so I fairly begged him not to do so, telling him that my folks thought I was doing well, and I promised more things than I can think of, so he didn't mail the letter, but instead let me out a couple of weeks after my arrest.

When I received your letter I was much disheartened to see the Asheville post mark, as it told me that you had taken the trip across the continent for nothing at all—and also, old man, while your letter was more polite and courteous than could be expected under such circumstances, I could see between the lines all that you left unsaid and what you thought of me, and that the letter was lacking in the old time enthusiasm, but God, old man, I couldn't help it, and can never express in words the sorrow I feel in having disappointed you.

When I left the Academy, and left Reordan behind, I thought that I could never again find a friend who understood me so well, or who was understood so well by me, but a few weeks later I was pleasantly surprised, and I know up to last January you possessed a kindred feeling and had faith in me. Probably you may have some idea of the way I feel at having deadened the feeling of one whom I considered my warmest friend, yourself, when you recollect that the chief thing I have done or tried to do thus far in life is making friends, and keeping their good regards. Had I enjoyed less, I'd be at Annapolis to-day.

Every acquaintance of mine from Chicago to Pueblo, by way of Huron, has heard of you through me, but I can't say enough by letter to make me feel right, so I'll knock off, but if you'll answer at once telling me that it is all right, and mean it, you'll make me feel a whole lot better. I am fully aware of the trouble, expense and annoyance I caused you. God knows any one would have had their faith shaken, and most people would have sent me a letter that would have fairly scorched the paper. To think that after looking forward to the time for months, with the greatest of pleasure, that something unforeseen should turn up that couldn't have disappointed you more had I plotted the whole thing out in advance! And, take it from me, that I was never more disappointed. But this talk doesn't relieve my feelings.

Well, I sent home for fifty dollars, which came in due time, as I didn't wire, but wrote explaining full particulars, but, needless to say, I didn't tell them of the arrest, as I'd never had the nerve to face them again if I had. With this money I purchased a ticket to Denver, Colorado, and from Denver here. I am working as assistant timekeeper in the Open Hearth Division of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Works, but I got my foot slightly burned, and intend to quit and go to El Paso, and from there to Mexico. Almost had my ticket bought when I made the acquaintance of a man named Straight, who has a son at the Academy, and he is one of the grand high Moguls in this town, with boundless influence, both political and otherwise. He has promised me something good, so I've changed my mind, but I may change it again before long and travel.

Well, old man, I have been dreading and deferring it, but now the explanation is over with, thank God, and I await with anxiety the verdict.

Goodby, old man, tell me all about yourself and your plans when you write, and let that be soon, then I'll answer at once.

With best regards, I remain,
Your old pard,

William B. Anderson.