For the second offense he received a life sentence.  My regret over securing his pardon, and the subsequent loss of human life, affected me as no other event has ever done in my career.  This man would have died for me or one of mine, and what I thought to be a generous act to a man in prison proved a curse that haunted me for many years.  But all is well now between us.  I make it a point to visit him at least once a year; we have talked the matter over and have come to the conclusion that the law is just and that he must remain in confinement the remainder of his days.  That is now the compact, and, strange to say, both of us derive a sense of security and peace from our covenant such as we had never enjoyed during the year of his liberty.  The wardens inform me that he is a model prisoner, perfectly content in his restraint; and I have promised him that on his death, whether it occurs before or after mine, his remains will be brought back to the home ranch and be given a quiet grave in some secluded spot.

For any success that I may have achieved, due acknowledgment must be given my helpmate.  I was blessed with a wife such as falls to the lot of few men.  Once children were born to our union and a hearthstone established, the family became the magnet of my life.  It mattered not where my occupation carried me, or how long my absence from home, the lodestar of a wife and family was a sustaining help.  Our first cabin, long since reduced to ashes, lives in my memory as a palace.  I was absent at the time of its burning, but my wife’s father always enjoyed telling the story on his daughter.  The elder Edwards was branding calves some five miles distant from the home ranch, but on sighting the signal smoke of the burning house, he and his outfit turned the cattle loose, mounted their horses, and rode to the rescue at a break-neck pace.  When they reached the scene our home was enveloped in flames, and there was no prospect of saving any of its contents.  The house stood some distance from the other ranch buildings, and as there was no danger of the fire spreading, there was nothing that could be done and the flames held undisputed sway.  The cause of the fire was unknown, my wife being at her father’s house at the time; but on discovering the flames, she picked up the baby and ran to the burning cabin, entered it and rescued the little tin trunk that held her girlhood trinkets and a thousand certificates of questionable land scrip.  When the men dashed up, my wife was sitting on the tin trunk, surrounded by the children, all crying piteously, fully unconscious of the fact that she had saved the foundation of my present landed holdings.  The cabin had cost two weeks’ labor to build, its contents were worthless, but I had no record of the numbers of the certificates, and to my wife’s presence of mind or intuition in an emergency all credit is given for saving the land scrip.  Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.  The compiling of these memoirs has