He shook my hand again and thanked me. He was so downright decent and charming that an outsider, observing our interview, would have thought he had come to ask a favor of me, and was departing under a heavy obligation. I was ashamed of going into his house and would have taken a pledge not to rob any more Englishmen but it didn’t seem necessary. From what I could see, there was a judge waiting in the jurisdiction I escaped who would attend to that.

The Scotchman loaded me with irons, put me on a boat to Vancouver, then on a train, and finally landed me back safely in his jail. He took the Englishman’s book from me on the train and never gave it back. I had no chance to read the story till I got out of his clutches. Later I got it, read it, and was fascinated and read every other book by the author that I could lay hands on.