Breakstone took the paper in his hands and smoothed it out. Then he held it up to the light, because the writing was faded and indistinct, and deciphered:
"I'm here, Phil, in this stone prison--it must be some sort of an old Spanish castle, I think, in the Mexican mountains. We were blindfolded and we traveled for days, so I can't tell you where I am. But I do know that we went upward and upward, and, when my shoes wore out, rocks sharp like steel cut into my feet. We also crossed many deep gulleys and ravines. I think we went through a pass. Then we came down into ground more nearly level. My feet were bleeding. We passed through a town and we stopped by a well. Then a woman gave me a cup of water. My throat was parched with dust. I knew it was a woman by her voice and her words of pity, spoken in Mexican. Then we came here. I have been shut up in a cell. I don't know how long, because I've lost count of time. But I'm here, Phil, between four narrow walls, with a narrow window that looks out on a mountainside, where I can see scrub pines and the thorny cactus. You're growing up now, Phil, and you may be able to come with friends for me. There's one here that's kind to me, the old woman who brings me my food, and she's loaned me a pencil and paper to write this. I've written the letter, and she's going to smuggle it away somehow northward into Texas, and then it may be passed on to you. I'm hoping, Phil, that it will reach you, wherever you are. If it does I know that you will try to come. JOHN BEDFORD."
"Look on the other side," said Phil.
Bill Breakstone turned it over and read the inscription:
"To Philip Bedford, Esquire,
"Paris,
"Kentucky."
Tears stood in the boy's eyes, and his hands were trembling. Breakstone waited quietly.
"As you see," said Phil, when he felt that his voice was steady, "the letter came. It's my brother, John, who wrote it. A man riding across the country from Frankfort gave it to me in Paris last year. A flatboatman had brought it up the Kentucky River from its mouth at the Ohio, and when he came to Frankfort he asked if anybody would take it to Paris. A dozen were ready to do it. The flatboatman--his name was Simmons, a mountaineer--knew nothing about the letter. He said it had been given to him at the mouth of the Ohio by a man on a steamer from New Orleans. The other man said it had been dropped in front of him on his table at an inn in New Orleans by a fellow who looked like a Mexican. He thought at first it was just a scrap of paper, but when he read it and looked around for the man, he was gone. He resolved to send the letter on to me if he could, but he doesn't know how many hands it had passed through before it reached him. But it's John's handwriting. I could never mistake it."
The boy's voice trembled now, and the tears rose in his eyes again. Breakstone looked at the paper, turning it over and over.
"The old woman that your brother writes about was faithful," he said at last. "Likely a dozen men or women had it before it was dropped on that table in New Orleans. What was your brother doing in Texas, Phil?"
"He was older than I, and he went to Texas to help in the fighting against Mexico. You know there were raids on both sides long after San Jacinto. You remember the Mier expedition of the Texans, and there were others like it. John and his comrades were taken in one of these, but I don't know exactly which. I have written letters to all the Texas officials, but none of them know anything."