Falling in with an outfit of bums and beggars at Vancouver I heard glowing reports of the prosperous mining towns in the interior of British Columbia and decided to visit them. A week’s journey over the Canadian Pacific Railway and down the Columbia River found me in the Kootenai mining district. Everything I touched turned to money. The sudden change from no liberty at all in prison to all the liberty in the world almost wrecked me. I didn’t think of saving the money so dangerously earned, but squandered it drinking, gambling, and making many trips across the line into the states where there were more opportunities for spending and dissipating.

At last a very valuable parcel of stones found its way into my hands. It was suicide to try to dispose of them on the Canadian side, and I bought a ticket to Pocatello and Salt Chunk Mary. I had been away from there almost four years, and had no fear that the town whittler would remember me, even if he was still on the job, and besides I was hungry for a look at Mary and for a feed of her beans and salt pork.