Dear Kate:
I can't write much, I am so nervous I am near crazy. The police are hot after Jim, and they haven't done a thing to me but give me the third degree twice. Once they had me up before the captain of the police station here, and once they had me at the central office where the old man himself took a turn at me. I was there four hours, and they done everything they could to make me tell short of putting me behind the bars. They promised me that they would see you got better time, but I know that is only hot air, and they coaxed and bullied and tried to scare me for hours. I told them that it was on the level, I didn't know where he was. I said "yes" that I'd seen him, that he came to me but left the same night. The Captain was rotten with me, and if it hadn't been for Tom Cassidy, I think he would a locked me up until Jim was found. But that great big cop stood up for me and said, "Oh, Captain, take my word for it, she is all right. She ain't lying. I watched her for years and she is on the level. The only thing to do is to watch her." He talked quite a lot with the Captain and they let me go, but I tell you setting four hours with a police captain who knows you and your people from the time they entered the ark, and who thinks you are lying just because your relations are crooks, ain't a rest cure for nervous women. I can't dance worth a damn, and I am so fidgety that if I hear a door slam I go all to pieces.
That ain't all either. When I was just turning our corner the other night a man came out of Sweeney's saloon and handed me a note from Jim asking me to give the bearer fifty dollars. I had been expecting it so I went down in my sock and give it to him. I don't know who he was, but I was dead scared for fear that he'd been seen.
Don't worry, things will come right some way. They can't be much worse. I will write you all the news.
XXX
Oh, Kate, can't you get word to Jim some way and call him off? He is just bleeding me to death, and every time I turn round there is some one with a note from him asking for money. I have drawn most all I have in the bank, and will soon be flat broke if this keeps up. I want to help him all I can, but it just kills me to see all the money that I have saved so careful and gone without things so as to have some for you when you come out so as you could rest a while and see what you wanted to do, go to that cheap crook and his friends. I suppose he is a paying them dear to hide him, cause they are a rotten lot and won't do nothing without pay. It scares me cold every time I see a man with a note in his hand, because the police are bound to get on to it sooner or later, and they will follow the fellow and find Jim. I have give him enough to get to Australia, why don't he go? Oh, I don't want them to get him of course, but I wish something would happen that would call him off of me.