Ever since the day that Becky and her family took the southern trail and I struck off west on the Smith cutoff, I’d had dreams about her. Some had been good but most were pretty bad. The night after we were told she’d been kidnapped by Indians, I had one hell of a bad one. But tonight, after learning she was locked up in a house for lunatics, I had myself the worst nightmare I could ever remember. Most of it had to do with me following Becky down long, dark corridors that seemed to go on forever. All the way down the length of these hallways on either side of me were locked doors that seemed to bulge outward into the passageway as I passed and door knockers that rapped all by themselves and shadows that reached out for me, then disappeared. And all the while a chorus of groans and hysterical screams echoed all around me.

I awoke with a start to discover I wasn’t inside any asylum but still in our camp just outside Nevada City. Lewis and I had gone there directly after talking with the shop owner’s wife, and though neither of us could sleep for sometime, we’d finally gotten to bed around midnight. By the looks of the horizon now, I figured it to be about 3 or 4 in the morning. As I stood there staring out into the darkness, I felt a stiff breeze coming from the north and a few big rain drops beginning to fall. I knew I’d never get back to sleep now, so I got a little fire going and started making some coffee. It wasn’t long before Lewis stirred and stuck his head out from under his blankets.

“Bad night?” he asked.

“Not the best,” I said as I fiddled with the pot of coffee.

Lewis got up slowly and came over to sit beside the fire with his blanket wrapped around him.

“Listen, Will,” he told me, “I’ve been doing some thinking on all this. Things might not be as bad as we imagine. The woman at the store could be exaggerating. After all, Becky’s a bright girl. And I’m sure they must have tests and such to see if a person’s really crazy or not.”

“But, Lewis,” I said, “think what she’s been through. First, she watches her father skinned alive by Apaches. Next, she’s kidnapped by the Indians and sees her mother die. Finally, after being imprisoned for days in an Apache camp, she’s handed over to the same white man who set up her father in the first place – the same man who hates everything about the Baldwin family. Given all she’s been through these past few months, I’m starting to wonder if she isn’t really out of her mind by now.”

Lewis came over and put his hand on my shoulder.

“We’ll get her out of this, Will, you’ll see. It may take some doing, but we’ll do it.”

“But how?” I asked him. “There’s only the two of us left. Maybe if the Bennetts and Arcanes and John were here. I’d even settle for the help of old Sam Morgan and his band of cut-throats about now. But it’s only you and I now, and we don’t even know if we can get into the place. Even if we do, what makes you think they’ll let us see her?”

I remember the tears being awful close as I considered how hopeless the whole situation was.

“Look,” Lewis said. “The first thing to do, Will, is straighten up and think positive. We’re not licked yet. We’ll go to the post office as soon as it opens this morning and send a letter to Mr. Granger. The sooner Capt. Hunt knows what’s going on, the sooner he might be able to help us.”

“But how can he help us? He’s just a trail guide, that's all.”

“I think there’s more to him than that, Will. He made a lot of contacts when he was in the Mormon Battalion during the Mexican War. We don’t know how much help he might be unless we ask.”

“Well, all I know is I’m done sleeping for tonight,” I said. “I just want to have some coffee then hit the road and see what we can get done.”

“That’s fine with me,” said Lewis. “Pass that pot over here.”

It was about 4 in the morning, just before sunrise, when we started walking back to Nevada City to wait at the post office until it opened. It was raining pretty hard now and we bundled up against the stiff wind that whipped around us. We had camped just a mile out of town and were heading back down the canyon trail toward the main street when we heard some horses coming from the direction of town. Before we had a chance to move out of the way, they were upon us, nearly knocking us over as we leaped out of their way. It sounded like there were three or four of them, and the riders were about as surprised to see us as we’d been to see them.

“Whoa,” called out one of them in the dark. “Who in the Goddamned blazes is that?”

“Show yourselves,” called another.

“No one to worry about,” Lewis called out. “Only two travelers on foot.”

Even in the dim, pre-dawn light, we could tell these riders were somewhat tipsy in their saddles. Their hats and jackets were drenched with rain and a strong smell of stale whiskey seemed to fill the night air.

“Do you know the road to North San Juan?” asked one of the riders. “We got business near there and aim to complete it before first light if we can.”

“We haven’t been there,” said Lewis, “but we’ll be heading that way ourselves later on.”

“We’re looking for the ’sylum,” said the first rider.

“Yeah,” said another, “the place for crazy folks.”

I felt my muscles grow tense

“What business do you have there?” I asked.

“It seems the owners are takin’ in a few too many patients,” said one of the riders. “Problem is, some of them ain’t even crazy.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Lewis. “What do you know about the place?”

“What I know,” said the first rider, “is that my brother Pete rode out ahead of us from Sacramento about three weeks ago. We had ourselves a claim out near Deer Creek and he was fixin’ to buy some equipment and set things up for us while the rest of us was finishin’ with other business.”

“We got one letter from him,” another rider said, “and he said he’d struck it big and we was to get up here soon as we could.”

“But then,” added the first rider, “when we got to our claim, some stranger was already workin’ it and this fella said he didn’t know nothin’ about Pete. We looked all around the place, but our brother was nowheres in sight. Then we asked all ’round town and finally beat it out of some old geezer that Pete had been shanghaied and dropped out in this here crazy house.”

The man’s horse whinnied in the early-morning air.

“Hell,” the rider said, weaving around in his rain-soaked saddle, “he ain’t got no more problems with ’is brain than I do! Besides, I’m not so sure it’s a crazy house at all. I think it’s just some place to put people they want out of the way.”

“Who do you mean by they?” Lewis asked. “Exactly who wants these people out of their way?”

“Hell, I don't know who they are,” the rider said. “All I know is we aim to bust the place up this morning and get Pete out.”

“You can’t do that!” I yelled. “Becky might get hurt!”

“Look," Lewis told the riders, “my friend and I also are looking for someone who’s being held there. She’s a young lady whose only crime was being carried away by Apaches in the desert. If what you say is true, there may be still other people who’ve been falsely committed, innocent people who might get hurt if you go busting in there with your guns drawn.”

The men were silent as Lewis continued.

“Just think on it, men,” he added, “that’s all we ask. We plan to head out there later ourselves. Maybe we can all try and talk to the people in charge there, reason with them if we can. Why don’t you wait and see what we come up with?”

“Hell, we ain’t got time for no reasonin’,” one of the men said loudly.

“That’s right,” echoed another, “we’ve wasted enough time already. We was aimin’ to get there in the middle of the night until Duane over there fell off his horse and we had to stop and sober him up.”

I heard a loud hacking sound and a wad of phlegm hitting the ground.

“’tweren’t my fault,” came a slurry voice. “Damn horse hit a chuckhole. That’s what I keep tellin’ you.”

“Anyway, we can’t wait for you and the boy to go in there and socialize,” the first rider said. “For all we know, they’re not really puttin’ people in there at all. Maybe they’re just knockin’ ’em over the head and buryin’ ’em out in the hills somewhere. I’m sorry, but we aim to hit ’em while their trail’s still warm.”

With that, the four riders pulled their horses around and struck off, leaving me and Lewis standing there in the pouring rain as they disappeared into the gray light of early morning.

“Damn it all!” Lewis said, “all we need is four drunks riding off with guns drawn.”

“Maybe they’ll manage to accomplish something,” I said.

“Oh, I’m sure they will,” Lewis said. “They’ll manage to get themselves shot.”

“Then should we go after them?” I asked.

“Even if we turned around and followed them out there this minute, we wouldn’t get there in time to pick up the pieces,” Lewis said. “No, whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. We can only hope someone stops them at the gate and they don’t get anywhere near the place. What we need to do now is stick to our original plan – go to the post office and get that letter off to Granger. In some ways, it’s a good thing we were too late to do it last night, because now we can pass on to Granger what those four men told us. Maybe Capt. Hunt has connections in San Francisco. Surely there must be some sort of law regarding the operation of asylums.”

“All I know is this whole thing’s worse than a nightmare,” I said. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find out I’ve been sick for two weeks, the way it happened to me before.”

“Will,” Lewis said, putting his hand on my shoulder, “I’m afraid it’s all real this time. And all we can do is make the best of it.”

And so we continued back to Nevada City, sloshing through the muddy streets of the sleeping town and reaching the post office about 5 a.m. The sign outside said it opened at 6, so we ducked under the awning to get out of the steady rain. We were joined about 10 minutes later by a well-dressed man with a long, slender face and a rather distinguished black beard and mustache.

“Damnation!” he said when he saw the notice. “Why can’t these government offices maintain reasonable business hours so a man can get a full day’s work done!”

Lewis smiled. “Well, it is a mite early,” he said.

The man looked at his watch and relaxed his face some.

“I suppose it is at that,” he said. “It’s just that I have a letter of great importance to send to a circuit court judge in Ohio. I’ve labored on it all night long without a break, and now I’ll be damned if I’m not obliged to wait while some fool postal clerk enjoys his breakfast and reads his morning paper before I can mail it off!”

“That first cup of coffee can be mighty important to some people,” Lewis said.

“I'll tell you what,” said the stranger, after glancing a second time at his pocket watch, “we’ve got a good 50 minutes before this place opens up. Why don’t you let me treat you to breakfast at the Ore Bucket? I don’t usually frequent these places at night, but I understand they put out a good feed in the morning.”

“That suits us fine,” said Lewis. “We’re low on cash and much obliged.”

We crossed the street and headed for the saloon, entering through the double doors to encounter a scene of great disarray. The bar was nearly empty of whiskey, but the gaming tables were still piled high with half-filled bottles, overflowing ashtrays and scattered decks of cards. Some of the chairs had been knocked over and still lay on the floor where they had fallen. Also on the wood-planked floor were the crumpled forms of two or three snoring miners who’d never made it back to their camps. Hovering over the whole room was the strong odor of stale beer and cigar smoke.

Picking our way through this maze of the previous night’s amusements and leftover customers, we made our way to the bar, where we ordered eggs, hash and biscuits off a chalkboard. Then we found ourselves a table that wasn’t quite so dirty as the others, where we sat down and waited to be served.

“This is mighty nice of you,” Lewis told the stranger again.

“Well, I’ll be honest,” said the stranger, “I do have an ulterior motive.” He extended his hand to us. “My name’s Lorenzo Sawyer, and I come from New York, by way of Ohio, where I was trained in the legal profession. I’ve only been in Nevada City about a week, but I like what I see here and I’m seriously thinking of starting a law practice in this fair city. In fact, I’ve already been approached about a possible court case and have written to my former law professor, Noah Swain, for his opinion.”

“Ah,” said Lewis, “the letter you were talking about. But, where do we come in?”

“I’ve been approached by a Chinese miner here in town who wants me to file a charge against several Americans who jumped his claim,” Sawyer said as our food arrived. “Although I’ve only just arrived here, I’ve already seen numerous other examples of mistreatment by whites against the Chinese. I’m planning to take the case, and for the past few days I’ve been asking miners like you why you feel the Chinese have been singled out for this kind of abuse.”

Lewis and I looked at each other, our forks midway to our mouths. Reluctantly, we lowered them back to our plates as Lewis broke it to Sawyer that we weren’t miners at all, though we hoped some day to move on to that activity.

“Oh, I see,” Sawyer said, visibly disappointed. “But, please, continue eating. It makes no matter. It only appeared to me that you knew your way around a mining camp, so I just assumed…”

“If you mean our clothes,” Lewis said, interrupting Sawyer with a laugh, “we’re seasoned travelers, that’s for certain.”

“And we have seen more than our share of mining camps,” I added between swallows of egg and hash.

“Well, then, your opinion is still valuable to me,” Sawyer said, his enthusiasm renewed. “You see, I’m trying hard to understand as well as I can just what the underlying prejudices are that allow certain segments of the population – the Chinese, for instance – to be persecuted with such intensity.”

“Mr. Sawyer,” said Lewis, “you’ve taken on a worthy cause. I don’t like to see anybody singled out or persecuted just because they're different. But, as someone who’s seen a good deal of this country, I believe the first thing you’ve got to understand is that no man likes to see someone else get something he thinks should be his. That message has made itself plenty clear to me as I’ve hiked pretty near the whole breadth of this continent. It may be even more true here in the gold country, where everywhere you look there’re valuables at stake.”

Sawyer nodded his head. “There’s an ugly side to the gold fever, I’ll grant you that,” he said.

“Then you should also know,” Lewis went on, “that there’s more than enough claim jumping going on between Americans and other Americans, without any Chinamen entering the picture. For what it's worth, I’ve seen native Californians¬¬ – the Mexicans I mean – getting their share of abuse from the ’49ers. Indians, too. And I’ll wager the Germans, Italians, Irish, French and whoever else comes out here have all gone through the same thing at one point or another. I can’t explain why the Chinese have been singled out for the worst abuse, if that’s what you’re telling me. Maybe it’s the slant of their eyes or the way they talk. Maybe it’s because they’re even more different from us than, say, the Irish, or French, or other folks from the continent. After all, most of us can trace our ancestors to those shores. But, to answer your question, part of me believes that Americans deserve the gold first and foreigners should play second fiddle. At the same time, another part of me says that if the general idea is ‘first come, first serve,’ then why aren’t the Indians entitled to it all? They were here way before we got here. A lot of things aren’t too fair, I’ll grant you that, but I don’t know what the answer is.”

“Yours is a fair response,” said Mr. Sawyer. “And what about you, son?”

“Well,” I said, “I haven't really thought about them much – the Chinese, I mean.” Pushing aside my empty plate, I sat back in my chair and considered his question. “But one thing I did see was the way negroes were treated in St. Joseph. I guess it’s sort of the same thing with the Chinamen, except they weren’t hauled over here against their will or anything like the slaves were. It seems to me there’s plenty of gold to go around, far as that goes. And I don’t see any need for those of us with white skin and some piece of paper saying we’re Americans to get all huffy and tell everybody else that we’re keeping the rest of the world out. Heck, what if each state in this country took spite with all the other states? What if California said you couldn’t come across the border if you were from Michigan, or Vermont or New York? If that’s the way things worked, the three of us wouldn't have got past the first state border.”

I remember Lorenzo Sawyer laughing out loud when I said that, but then he nodded and said it was a good point.

“Let me add one more thing to the mix,” Lewis said, “and that’s the fact that ever since Will and I arrived in California, we’ve been witness to more examples of cruelty – one man against another – than I care to enlarge upon. The Chinese are certainly one set of victims, and I guess they deserve justice as much as anyone else who’s seen his rights trampled over. But they’d best get in line, ’cause I’ll wager there’s more victims in the gold camps than there are courts or lawyers or judges to deal with all the cases. If California ever does become a state, it’ll be a damned shame if its constitution is written with the blood of those men whose hopes and dreams were crushed in this mad dash to pull a few dollars out of the ground.”

“You’re quite a philosopher, Mr. Manly. You too, Will. And yet I detect a note of cynicism in your tone and a sign of personal grievance in your voice. Could it be, Mr. Manly, that you yourself have been a victim of the greed and lawlessness pervading this territory?”

“Not me,” Lewis said, “not really. But someone who is near and dear to both Will and myself – especially dear to Will – has suffered a grievous miscarriage of justice. Fact is, the whole reason we’ve come to Nevada City involves brutality of the most cold-blooded sort. I only wish we had our own judge to write to with our complaints.”

“Please, gentlemen,” Sawyer said, “do tell me your story. Perhaps there’s some way I can help.”

So Lewis and I told our tale to Lorenzo Sawyer, and through the whole thing he listened like a man who hadn’t heard a good story in a great while. As we talked, his eyes gazed intently upon us and his ears strained to pick up every word. When we were done, he sat back in his chair holding his cup of coffee in one hand and scratching his head with the other.

“I must tell you, gentlemen, that this tale puts to shame every yarn I ever read as a child in LeRoy, New York. And, believe me, I wore out the pages of a good many dime novels. Would that this were only a tale of fiction, a story meant as entertainment.”

“I'm afraid it’s all too true,” said Lewis. “But, have you any advice for us after hearing our story? Do you know anything about these asylums or how people are committed? Is it possible for people to be removed from such places if they’ve been committed in error?”

“You pose some difficult questions,” Sawyer said. “When I apprenticed under Prof/ Swain – now Judge Swain – my studies touched on this area only once or twice. This much I know – there is almost a total lack of legislation defining commitment procedures. For the most part, insane persons can be committed to mental hospitals and poorhouses without any formal procedure. Nor is there, so far as I’m aware, any central supervision or control over any of these institutions, public or private.”

“Shouldn’t there be some commission or agency overseeing it all?” asked Lewis.

“I believe so personally, yes,” Sawyer said, “especially given the incidences of abuse that I’ve read about in magazines and daily newspapers. As a matter of fact, about a month or two before I headed west, I remember reading a newspaper article about a man who claimed to have been wrongly committed to an institution for idiots, due to the scheming of greedy relatives. From what I’ve read, it’s not out of the question that what those drunk men on horses told you was absolutely true. And given the greed and violence we’ve all seen in and about the mining towns, it’s believable to me that this so-called ‘Safe House’ is an elaborate scheme set up by one or more corrupt individuals. It may be a way to rid themselves of respectable men who might, through their honest toil, succeed in releasing the stranglehold these unscrupulous parties have on mining interests.”

“Of course, in our case,” Lewis said, “Becky Baldwin’s kidnapping had nothing to do with mining.”

“That’s true,” Sawyer said, “and it suggests to me that the reputation of this place may have spread among thieves everywhere, even outside the gold fields. Perhaps, in the case of this ‘Skeeter Daniels’ fellow, it might be that this ‘asylum’ is a mere façade. It could be a convenient set-up where any crook with ready cash can dump his unwanted enemies, or potential witnesses. In return for a fee, maybe the people behind this so-called ‘Safe House’ operation assure these criminals that the individuals they ‘commit’ won’t be heard from again.”

“You don’t think they just kill the people they commit, do you?” I heard a wavering in my own voice as I asked the question.

“Son, I can’t offer any intelligent guesses about that. It seems to me, however, that if they want to look like a bona fide institution, they’ve got to house some real patients. At the very least they’d need a few people around whom they can keep sedated and confused enough to look like real patients. The only ones they might be inclined to eliminate are the more troublesome types, or those with no friends or relatives to come poking around looking for their missing relations.”

I looked at Lewis and felt my eyes growing wide with fear.

“But, Becky’s an orphan now,” I said. “As far as anyone knows, there’s no one to come looking after her.”

“That may be true,” Sawyer said, “but they don’t necessarily know she’s an orphan. After all, you’ve told me that Skeeter Daniels was pretending Becky was his daughter back in the town of Oakdale. He might have told the same story when he had her committed. In any case, I doubt he’d tell the whole truth to the operators of this asylum – I mean about the judge and the Apaches and the murders and kidnapping. Why risk spreading the gory details of his deeds all over the place, especially when there’s a posse already hot on his trail? It would be so much simpler for Skeeter to tell them that Becky’s his daughter and that she’s insane. And given those circumstances, I hardly think they’d do away with her. If they do think she’s Daniels’ daughter, they’d have to be cautious in case he ever had a change of heart and came back for her.”

“I wonder if that’s his plan,” Lewis said.

“It could be,” Sawyer said. “Maybe when the heat’s off Daniels, and the posse from Sonora has given up looking for him, he’ll come back to get her. In the meantime, as far as the asylum is concerned, she’s probably an ideal example of an authentic patient. They can keep her drugged and drag her out should anyone ever want proof that they’re a legitimate asylum.”

“But what do we do now?” I asked. “If Lewis and I go marching up to the front door of that place and ask to see her, they’ll never just let us walk right in.”

“Especially,” added Lewis, “if our four drunken friends have already made their appearance this morning as they threatened.”

“No,” said Sawyer, “they'll no doubt have the place locked up tighter than a drum after those fellows show up. In any case, I don’t believe her life is in danger. After all, if this Skeeter really wanted Miss Baldwin dead, he could have taken care of that on a dozen different occasions, even clear back in Apache territory if he’d wanted.”

Sawyer looked at his watch. “Post office should be open now,” he said, rising from his chair.

He left a few dollars on the bar and hurried us out of the saloon and into the street. “I’m sorry to seem in such a rush all the time, but I must get this correspondence off immediately. It may mean the difference as to whether I start a practice here or not. But as soon as I’ve dropped off my letter, let’s finish this discussion.”

“That sounds fine,” Lewis said. “We appreciate your willingness to help. Can I assume you won’t object if I pass your name on to Mr. Granger, who has asked that we write him regularly?”

“Not at all,” Sawyer said. “A man never knows whom he’ll have to call on as a friend. If I’m going to establish a career as a lawyer – perhaps some day even a judge – it won’t hurt to spread my name around the region.”

And so the three of us went on into the post office to take care of our respective errands. Lewis and I went over to the counter and together composed a letter to Mr. Granger, telling him about all the latest developments and asking for any help he or Capt. Hunt might be able to provide. This took several minutes and after sending it off, we hurried back outside and rejoined Sawyer, who had been waiting for us on the front steps of the building and was busily consulting his pocket watch when we arrived.

“Now, gentlemen,” he said, “here is my plan. First, we’ll pay a visit to the local newspaper office, where I will have a few dozen business cards printed up to read Lorenzo Sawyer, Regional Inspector, Territorial Commission on Lunacy, or something along those lines. Following this, we will then proceed to the “Safe House’ in my luxury coach, which we will rent at the livery downtown so as to add to the authenticity of the whole matter. Finally, leaving the two of you to wait outside, I shall go up to the front door and request to see the superintendent of the institution or the physician in charge of Ms. Baldwin. I will inform him that the Territorial Commission is interested in monitoring certain cases throughout California, and that Becky’s case has particular interest to us.”

“Mr. Sawyer,” Lewis said, “you amaze me with your quick thinking and adroitness. Fact is, I hate to put a damper on your well-thought out plans, but I already see a few problems.”

“Oh?” Sawyer said. “What are they?”

“First of all, if there really isn’t any Territorial Commission on Lunacy, how are you going to explain how you got a patient’s name and knew where she’d been committed? The owners of the asylum certainly didn’t send any information to you because such a commission doesn’t really exist. Secondly, even if you can con them into believing you had a way to get that information, how will you know the name of the patient to ask for?”

“I see your point,” Sawyer said. “I can’t ask for Rebecca Baldwin, can I?”

“That's right,” Lewis said. “If there’s one thing we know, it’s that Skeeter Daniels didn’t give Becky’s real name when he committed her. He probably didn’t even use his own real name. The old man in Oakdale called her Alice, but we can’t even be sure that’s the name he used up here. So, even if you’re allowed inside the place, just who are you going to ask for?”

“Well, I certainly can’t ask to see every patient in the place,” Sawyer replied. “That would take way too much time, and might seem suspicious to them.”

“The whole thing’s going to seem suspicious anyway, as far as that goes,” Lewis said.

“What if you asked to see all the women in the asylum?” I offered. “You could say your Commission is checking the welfare of female patients only. That way, you’d eliminate half the patients.”

“Or,” suggested Sawyer, “I could proceed a bit further and ask to see all women patients under a certain age.”

He thought a moment, scratching at his beard. “I could say that the Commission has been newly formed in anticipation of the coming statehood, and that all asylums will need to be registered with the state within the next few years.

“Of course,” he said, growing more excited as he talked, “then I could move the conversation along by saying that the Commission is particularly interested in the welfare of female minors in such institutions. I’m making an assumption that Ms. Baldwin is one of very few young girls being held there. She may be the only one there under 18, for that matter. At any rate, I think I can come up with some impromptu legal jargon to gain access to her physician, assuming there’s one on staff. Then, if I can get him to part with some information about her, or better yet, gain access to see her, I should be able to determine her present state of mind, and whether she’s safe for the time being. Finally, I can join the two of you back outside and we can go on to plan our next move.”

“It all sounds pretty tangled to me,” I told him. “And dangerous.”

“Could be,” Sawyer said, “could well be. It all hinges on how much interest they have in being regarded as a real mental hospital. I’m gambling that their reputation is important to them, especially if their real intentions are as contemptuous as we believe. We have a saying back east –‘the finest suit often clothes the filthiest businessman.’ It means that folks who engage in disreputable activities often go overboard in trying to exhibit a flawless demeanor. If this place has a real doctor on staff, and if they have at least a handful of authentic patients, I honestly don’t think they’ll mind being subject to the scrutiny of a traveling inspector. After all, if there really was such a territorial commission, it could cause them serious harm if they didn’t cooperate.”

Sawyer smiled. “Who knows?” he added. “They might even welcome me with open arms, figuring that once they’ve dealt with me in an open manner, the state will leave them alone.”

“Mr. Sawyer,” said Lewis, “it sounds like one hell of a gamble, but it sure beats tearing the place apart like those riders were planning to do.”

Sawyer raised his eyes skyward. “Let us pray, gentlemen, that they were deterred somehow from their mission. Their meddling in this could foul us up badly, and we’ll need all the good fortune we can get, with no distractions whatsoever.”

He reached out and shook hands with each of us. “Oh, and gentlemen,” he added, “please do me the favor of calling me Lorenzo.”

With our plan pretty well figured out, we headed on down to the local newspaper office and printery, where Lorenzo showed the typesetter what he needed in the way of a business card. And although our new friend offered no proof that he was who he said he was, the typesetter fairly bowed with respect when he heard that Sawyer worked for a commission of any kind, in any capacity whatsoever.

“Let’s hope everyone we meet is equally impressed,” Lorenzo whispered to Lewis and me.

While he and the typesetter conferred on things like type styles and em spaces and line justification, none of which I knew anything about, Lewis and I wandered around looking at old issues of the Nevada City News and scanning the little cards with items for sale that were pinned to the wall near the front door. We noticed a boy who was stacking a number of old issues of the newspaper atop the front counter. When he had finished doing this, he brought over a large piece of butcher paper, and began wrapping them up. After he was done, the boy took a slip of paper out of a drawer and began copying an address onto the carefully wrapped package. Apparently someone had ordered a bunch of old newspapers, which struck me as a rather odd thing to do, and Lewis went so far as to walk over and look at the address on the package.

“Are these going out today?” he asked.

“On the noon stage,” the boy said.

“Will, come over here,” Lewis exclaimed. “These newspapers are going to Francisco.”

“San Francisco?” I asked.

“No,” Lewis said. “Francisco Ramirez. Remember? From the newspaper office down in Los Angeles?”

“Of course!” I said.

“Well, that’s who these are being sent to.” Lewis turned to the boy and said, “Could I impose upon you to open that package again for a moment? I’m a friend of the man you’re sending those to, and I'd sure like to drop a quick note to him.”

The boy looked at his employer, as if asking for permission.

“I’ll let you slip in your note on one condition,” said the editor, coming around the corner and up to the front counter.

He was a gray-haired, pot-bellied little man who held a pipe in his mouth with his teeth as he talked. He wore a pair of small spectacles that were poised at the very end of his pointed nose and seemed ready to fall off at any moment.

“I’ll let you scribble your note and slip it in that package,” he repeated, “only if you add a few carefully chosen words designed to convince young Mr. Ramirez to pay his bill for the back issues I’ve been sending him for more than a year.”

Lewis grinned.

“It's a deal,” he said. “And I can assure you that your money’s as good as on the next stage back to you.”

“Right,” said the editor dryly, “and one day man will learn to fly.”

The boy proceeded to tear open the package he’d just finished sealing while Lewis quickly wrote a brief note to Francisco, telling him where we were, what had happened in the past few weeks and what our plans were. Then he gave the note to the boy, who put it in on top of the stack of old newspapers and again began to seal up the package.

“I’ll bet Ramirez will be surprised to hear from us,” I said.

"Like Lorenzo says,” Lewis replied, “you never know whose help you’re going to need.”

About that time, ‘Inspector Lorenzo Sawyer’ emerged from the back room with a handful of freshly printed business cards.

"Government officials get quick turn-around in this town,” he said with a grin.

Then we headed to the livery to rent a shiny black coach. And after that had been accomplished, we hit the road to North San Juan, our mission to the mysterious asylum awaiting.

We are back to the true "story" and I once again cannot wait for the next chapter. I eagerly anticipate the adventures of Will, and the hopeful recovery of Becky!