“I must tell you Mr. Harris has got better—can talk some and walk around; can’t move his left arm any 325 yet. But Mr. Dan sent for two fine doctors, and they tried to help him with electricity. And I was scared for fear lightning might strike camp after that; but it didn’t. Lavina is here still, and likely to stay. She’s a heap of company; and she and Captain Leek are better friends than they was.
“There is a new man in camp now; he found a silver mine down near Bonner’s Ferry, and sold it out well. He was a farmer back in Indiana, and has been on a visit to our camp twice. Mr. Dan says it’s my cooking fetches him. Everything is different here now. Mr. Dan got sawed lumber, and put me up a nice little house; and up above the bluff he has laid out a place where he is going to build a stone house, just as if he intends to live and die here. He doesn’t ever seem to think that he has enough made now to rest all his days. Sometimes I think he ain’t well. Sometimes, ’Tana, I think it would cheer him up if you would just write him a few lines from time to time. He always says, ‘Is she well?’ when I get a letter from you; and about the time I’m looking for your letters he’s mighty regular about getting the mail here.
“That old Akkomi went south when winter set in, and we reckon he’ll be back when the leaves get green. His whole village was drunk for days on the money you had Mr. Seldon give him, and he wore pink feathers from some millinery store the last time I saw him. But Mr. Dan is always patient with him whether he is drunk or sober.
“I guess that’s all the news. Lavina sends her respects. And I must tell you that on Christmas they got some whisky, and all the boys drank your health—and drank it so often Mr. Dan had to give them a talking to. They think a heap of you. Yours with affection,
“Lorena Jane Huzzard.
“P. S.—William McCoy is the name of the stranger I spoke of. The boys call him Bill.”