Late as it is, I feel that I ought to tell you that I have spent the evening with Keseberg.  I have just got back, and return early to-morrow to complete my interview.  By merest accident, while tracing, as I supposed, the record of his death, I found a clue to his whereabouts.  After dark I drove six miles and found him.  At first he declined to tell me anything, but somehow I melted the mood with which he seemed enwrapped, and he talked freely.

He swears to me that he did not murder your mother.  He declares it so earnestly that I cannot doubt his veracity.  To-morrow I intend plying him closely with questions, and by a rigid system of cross examination will detect the false-hood, if there is one, in his statement.  He gives chapter after chapter that others never knew.  I cannot say more to-night, but desire that you write me (at the Cosmopolitan) any questions you might wish me to ask Keseberg, and if I have not already asked them, I will do so on my return from San Francisco.

C.F.  MCGLASHAN.

After his second interview with Keseberg and in response to my urgent appeal for full details of everything relating to my parents, Mr. McGlashan wrote: 

I wish you could see him.  He will talk to either you or me at any time, unless other influences are brought to bear upon him.  If I send word for him to come to Sacramento, he will meet me on my return.  If you and your husband could be there on Thursday or Friday of this week, I could arrange an interview at the hotel that would be all you could wish.  I asked him especially if he would talk to you, and he said, “Yes.”

    I dared not tell you about my interview until I had your permission. 
    Even now, I approach the task tremblingly.

    Your mother was not murdered.  Your father died, Keseberg thinks,
    about two weeks after you left.  Your mother remained with him until
    the last and laid him out tenderly, as you know.

The days—­to Keseberg—­were perfect blanks.  Mrs. Murphy died soon after your departure with Eddy, and he was left alone—­alone in his cabin—­alone with the dead bodies which he could not have lifted from the floor, because of his weakness, even had he desired.  The man sighs and shudders, and great drops of agony gather upon his brows as he endeavors to relate the details of those terrible days, or recall their horrors.  Loneliness, desolation was the chief element of horror.  Alone with the mutilated dead!

    One night he sprang up in affright at the sound of something moving
    or scratching at a log outside his cabin.  It was some time before he
    could understand that it was wolves trying to get in.