week before I came to my senses. [131] [131] CHAPTER XV. HE BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH A CHICAGO WIDOW. I came to my senses in one of the bedrooms of the Shantytown Hotel. There was only a partition between that and the other bedrooms of brown cotton cloth, and as I slowly became conscious of things about me, I heard two voices beyond the next curtain talking of my affairs. "I reckon he won't know where the time's gone to when he comes to himself ag'in. Lucky for him he didn't go up, like the old gentleman, in such small pieces as to never come down. I don't see, fur the life of me, what purvented. He was standin' right over the kag on which the old chap sot. Marakalous escape, that of the young lady. Beats everything." "You bet, pardner, 'twouldn't happen so once in a thousand times. You see, she was jist blowed over the ledge an' rolled down twenty or thirty feet, an' brought up on a soft spot—wa'n't hurt a particle. But how she does take on about her pop! S'pose you knew her brother's come on fur her?" "No."[132] [132] "Yes; got here by the noon stage. They're reckoning to leave Shantytown immegitly. Less go down and see 'em off!" They shuffled away. I don't know whether my head ached, but I know my heart did. I was a murderer. Or, if not quite so bad as a deliberate murderer, I was, at the very least, guilty of manslaughter. And why? Because I had not been able to overcome my wicked weakness. I felt sick of life, of everything—especially of the mines. "I can never return to the scene of the accident," I thought. I groaned and tossed, but it was the torture of my conscience, and not of my aching limbs. The doctor and others came in. "How long shall I have to lie here?" I asked.
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