“I KNOW the cause of Dawson’s trouble,” remarked Vose Adams, late one night at the Heavenly Bower¹.  
“What is it?” asked Wade² Ruggles, while the rest listened intently.
 
“On my last trip to Sacramento, two months ago, I brought him a thick letter: that’s what is raising the mischief³ with him.”
 
“But what was in the letter to make him act so queer?”
 
“How should I know? do you expect me to open and read all the letters I bring through the mountains?”
 
“Bein’ as you couldn’t read the big letters the parson has painted on the side of the rock a foot high,” said Al Bidwell sarcastically⁴, “there ain’t much danger of your doin’ that, which the same is lucky for them as gits love letters like myself regular by each mail.”
 
“Which the same you won’t git any more onless you sling⁵ your remarks a little more keerful,” warned the mail carrier.
 
“And the same being that you can’t read the directions 93 writ⁶ onto them, I don’t see how you’re going to help yourself.”
 
“The postmaster at Sacramento is very obligin’,” was the significant comment of Vose.
 
Bidwell saw the dangerous ground on which he was treading, and made it safe by a jesting remark and an invitation to Adams and the rest to join him at the bar.
 
“We was on the subject of Dawson,” remarked Ruggles from his seat, for all had learned long before of the uselessness of inviting⁷ him to drink; “and it’s the opinion of Vose, I understand, that it was the letter that has made the change in him.”
 
“There ain’t any doubt about it,” said Adams; “fur the attack took him right after; I noticed the difference in him the next day. He sets by himself these evenings after the little gal⁸ has gone to bed, smoking his pipe, without any light in his shanty⁹, and thinking hard.”
 
Wade smoked thoughtfully a minute and then remarked:
 
“I wonder whether it wouldn’t be a good idee to app’int a committee to wait on Dawson and ask him what the blazes is the matter and whether we can’t do nothin’ to make a man of him agin.”
 
Since Ruggles had become accustomed to act as chairman at the discussions in the Heavenly Bower, he had developed a strong faith in committees.
 
“That’s a piece of the most onspeakable foolishness 94 that I’ve run aginst since I settled in New Constantinople,” observed the landlord with a contemptuous sniff¹⁰; “the minute the committee arrove and stated their bus’ness, Dawson would kick ’em out of his shanty and clean across the street, and he’d be lacking in the instincts of a man if he didn’t do that same thing.”
 
“Mr. Ortigies forgits that I didn’t mean to suggest that he was to be a member of the committee; I meant they should be gentlemen; consequently that bars him out and there wouldn’t be no trouble.”
 
“I understand your sarcasm¹¹, Wade, but your words would leave you off the committee likewise; but may I ask what the members would ask him when they knocked at his door?”
 
“Any gentleman wouldn’t be at a loss what to say, fur he would only hev to remark sorter careless like that he had observed the man was acting¹² so queer that we was afeard he was troubled with remorse¹³ over some crime he’d committed, and about which he had got notice that the officers was lookin’ fur him, but that if he’d trust us and give a description of the officers, so there wouldn’t be any mistake, we’d watch fur ’em up the trail and pick ’em off afore they could profane¹⁴ New Constantinople with their presence.”
 
This was a prodigious¹⁵ sentence for Wade, and he leaned back and smoked his pipe with considerable self-complacency, 95 but it impressed none of his hearers as he expected. Parson Brush shook his head.
 
“It isn’t a very wise way of introducing yourself to a man by assuming that he is a fugitive¹⁶ from justice. In the first place, I am sure there is nothing of the kind in the case of Dawson. He has probably heard some news from the East that troubles him.”
 
“That’s just what I was sayin’,” broke in Ruggles.
 
“But not of the nature intimated by you.”
 
“What else can it be?”
 
“It might be one of a dozen things; I know you are all wrong in your guesses.”
 
Every eye was fixed¹⁷ upon the parson, for all were anxious to learn at what he was hinting. His face was unusually grave, but he stopped speaking, as if he deemed it indiscreet to say anything more. He noticed the looks and whetted¹⁸ the curiosity by adding:
 
“I have been so disturbed over the change in Dawson that I called on him last night and had a talk with him.”
 
“And what did you learn?” asked Budge¹⁹ Isham, the moment Brush showed an inclination²⁰ to stop talking.
 
“Well, it was hard work to draw him out, but finally he told me he had received a letter from the East, which made him think he would have to leave us. That isn’t the worst.”
 
96
All were breathless, afraid to give utterance²¹ to ............