Only to think of it, dear, a woman
that you wouldn't speak to!" Here Mr. Maston coughed slightly,
colored a little, mumbled something about "women not understanding
some things," "that men were men," etc., and then went comfortably
to sleep, leaving the outcast, happily oblivious of all things, and
especially this criticism, locked up in Hangtown Jail.
For the next twelve hours he lay there, apathetic and half-
conscious. Recovering from this after a while, he became furious,
vengeful, and unmanageable, filling the cell and corridor with
maledictions of friend and enemy; and again sullen, morose, and
watchful. Then he refused food, and did not sleep, pacing his
limits with the incessant, feverish tread of a caged tiger. Two
physicians, diagnosing his case from the scant facts, pronounced
him insane, and he was accordingly transported to Sacramento. But
on the way thither he managed to elude the vigilance of his guards,
and escaped. The alarm was given, a hue and cry followed him, the
best detectives of San Francisco were on his track, and finally
recovered his dead body--emaciated and wasted by exhaustion and
fever--in the Stanislaus Marshes, identified it, and, receiving the
reward of $1,000 offered by his surviving relatives and family,
assisted in legally establishing the end we had predicted.
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