Knapp, though
he looked older. He was wild in his youth. When he left home it was in
the night, and for some offense that would have brought him within
reach of the law. Mr. Knapp never told me what it was and I never
asked. For fifteen years nothing was heard of him. Mr. Knapp and I
married, we had come to San Francisco, and he was already a rising man
in the city. One day this man came. He had drifted to the coast in some
lawless enterprise, and by chance found his brother."
Mrs. Knapp paused.
"And at once began to live off of him, I suppose," I threw in as an
encouragement to proceed.
"Not exactly," said Mrs. Knapp. "He confessed some of his rascality to
Mr. Knapp, but pleaded that he was anxious to reform. Mr. Knapp agreed
to help him, but made the condition that he should take another name,
and should never allow the relationship to be known. Mr. Lane--I can
not call him by his true name--was ready to agree to the conditions. I
think he was very glad indeed to conceal himself under an assumed name,
and hide from the memory of his earlier years."
"Had his crimes then been so great?" I asked, as Mrs. Knapp again
ceased to speak.
"He had been a wicked, wicked man," said Mrs. Knapp. "The full tale of
his villainy I never knew, but he had been a negro stealer,--one of
those who captured free negroes or the darkies from Kentucky and
Missouri in the days before the war, and sold them down the river. He
had been the leader of a wild band in Arkansas and Texas, who made
their living by robbing travelers and stealing horses.
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