own record was not a very good one. Millicent avowed that she was too worried to eat, but she was tempted by the strawberries and carp, and wondered were the California fowls really so poor; and gave the sample the benefit of impartial and fair examination, in the end making a very fair meal.

It is not to be supposed that Winter had been idle; before dinner he had put a guard in the hall and had seen Haley, who reported that his wife and child had gone to a kinswoman in Santa Barbara.

“Sure the woman has a fine house intirely, and she’s fair crazy over the baby that’s named afther her, for she’s a widdy woman with never a child excipt wan that’s in hivin, a little gurrl; and she wudn’t let us rist ’til she’d got the cratur’. Nor I wasn’t objictin’, for I’m thinking there’ll be something doin’ and the wimin is onconvanient, thim times.”

The colonel admitted that he shared Haley’s opinion. He questioned the man minutely about[91] Mercer’s conduct on the train. It was absolutely commonplace. If he had any connection (as the colonel had suspected) with the bandits, he made no sign. He sent no telegrams; he wrote no letters; he made no acquaintances, smoking his solitary cigar over a newspaper. Indeed, absolutely the only matter of note (if that were one) was that he read so many newspapers—buying every different journal vended. At San Francisco he got into a cab and Haley heard him give the order: “To the St. Francis.” Having his wife and child with him, the sergeant couldn’t follow; but he went around to the St. Francis later, and inquired for Mr. Mercer, for whom he had a letter (as was indeed the case—the colonel having provided him with one), but no such name appeared on the register. Invited to leave the letter to await the gentleman’s arrival, Haley said that he was instructed to give it to the gentleman himself; therefore, he took it away with him. He had carried it to all the other hotels or boarding-places in San Francisco which he could find, aided greatly thereto by a friend of his, formerly in “the old —th,” a sergeant, now stationed at the Presidio. Thanks to him, Haley could say definitely that Mercer was not at any of the hotels[92] or more prominent boarding-houses in the city, at least under his own name.

[91]

[92]

“And you haven’t seen him since he got into the cab at the station?” the colonel summed up.

Haley’s reply was unexpected: “Yes, sor, I seen him this day, in the marning, in this same hotel.”

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