us how crazy he was about Vince and that he wanted to take him back to England with him."

Kate handed me the diary. It was written on the kind of coarse ruled paper I'd used in grade school. The date, April 15 Leadville-Clarendon Hotel "It's five a.m. At last Oscar is asleep. He needs rest. Excitement and this high altitude have worn him down. After that mess at the station he had to ride in Crawford's old buggy. It skidded all over the street and I had to hold on to him to keep him from falling out. He's so different from what the papers print about him. He's kind, thoughtful, considerate. He's no weakling. His fingers are long and thin but strong. If he had to he could pack a wallop. Oddly enough we're both 28 and our fathers are Irish. I asked him why the papers always pictured him holding either a sunflower or a lily. He grinned. He said he assumed it was because they were his favorite flowers. His words were, 'What other flowers have the slender grace and the virginal beauty of the lily or the strength and majesty of the sunflower?' I was standing at the window looking at the moonlight on the icy peaks. They gleamed like silver. Oscar came over and put his arm across my shoulders. After a long silence he said, 'Beauty is the only thing in nature that time cannot harm. Neither can it ever erase a cherished memory. Just then there was a knock. I opened the door. It was Bill Brannigan from The Leadville Herald. He stared at Oscar in amazement. He expected to find him in a silk kimono instead of the baggy pants and coarse shirt he had on. In a condescending way he asked Oscar how he liked western clothes. Oscar said they were characteristic of the virility of the western men. He couldn't imagine anything more absurd than His Majesty, the King, in chaps and a som-

one

brero. Before he was through with Bill he had him eating out of his hand. Oscar insists I stay with him every minute he's here."

I stopped reading and said to Kate, "Here's something he wrote about you. Maybe you can explain it. It says, 'Kate, I'll always bless you for giving Oscar that quart of olive oil before he left Denver!""

Kate exploded with a laugh. "I knew they'd both need it. I stole it from the kitchen. You couldn't buy it, it was so hard to get. Vince drank hard liquor only when he had to. Before he went anyplace where he knew they'd get nasty if he didn't swill down a quart like the rest of them he'd take a few gulps of the oil. It lined his stomach and he could drink all of them under the table. And that's what happened that night. One of Tabor's henchmen, Snooky Backus was his name, took Oscar and Vince to Tabor's mine, The Matchless. They were supposed to have their supper there but Vince was wise to them. He and Oscar downed their oil. By the time they left the mine, Snooky and the miners were so crocked they couldn't even stand. Vince took Oscar on a tour of the whore houses so he'd get an idea what they were like in case he ever wanted to write about them. They didn't go inside any, they didn't need to. The hookers were all outside afraid they'd miss seeing Oscar. Some of them nearly tore off his clothes trying to get him inside their dumps. and they were dumps. No beds, just benches to work on."

I turned to the next page in the diary. The date-April 16. "Back again in my 2x4 with Maud Hawks' bedbugs. She informed me she'd have to have a dollar more a month or she'd move another miner in with me.

gave it to her. Oscar left on the 9 o'clock train this morning for Colorado Springs. We didn't say goodby.

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