Arizona republican., 1898-04-02
(Continued From Yesterday.)
Copyright. 1896. by F. Tennyson Nicely.

three in disposition, but that was say ing little, and when all his money was gone they fairly kicked him out of doors, and he, in desperation, drifted to Nevada and the mines, just in the days when colossal fortunes were be- ing made by men who were welding pick and shovel. At the very time old Perkins people were trying to get a divorce. alleging desertion and failure to support, McLane loomed up at Vir- ginia City as part owner of lode that paid like the Comstock, and his Sacra- mento wife, who was believed to be deeply in love with a steamboat en- yineer, proved that she wasn't by jour neying to Virginia City with her little boy and retaining her now prosperous husband. There they lived in style, and the Perkins household came to visit them and remained indefinitely, until the pickering drove McLane mad and he skipped to Frisco" where every deal he made in the stock market went his way, and he became a millionaire before he was 30. Again his pretty but low-bred wife followed, and again
 
 his bargain; but her mad extravaganza and the ceaseless incursions of mother and sister-in-law were too much for him. One day there came a crash and much of his fortune was swept away. He had to break up his San Francisco home and go back to Virginia City, and g furious quarrel followed, in which he ordered the Perkinses never to darken his doors again, and To. his wife sided with her sister and elected to go with them. McLane would gladly have part ed with them all, but he had grown to love his boy. When once more, a year later, fortune smiled on him, and, with q new bank account, he came down to San Francisco, the Perkinses had dis appeared. Two of the sisters were liv- ing the lives of adventuresses. Old Per kins was dead and buried, and no one knew where the rest had gone-a host of Sacramento tradesmen wished they could find out.
 Then McLane came east, bringing his sheaves with him, and his family not unnaturally forgave and welcomed hIm. Prosperity followed him. He fairly coined money, and Uncle Abe Mellen was only too glad to have him a s q partner; and then after lapse of years, when he thought her dead and honestly wished her so. his blissful bachelor life was broken in upon by the reappearance of his Sacramento wife, TOW q handsome woman of nearly 4O and stalwart stripling whom he recognized at once as his longfost son. For two years he provided for her and Tried to educate the boy. but never again acknowledged her as his wife. and so long as she was amply paid and housed, lodged and cared for, she never protested. Macs club friends st metimes winked and nudged each other when the tall young fellow ap- Feared at the waiting-room with let ter, or when occasionally a dashing- looking woman patroled the neighbor hood until he would come out and join her. The boy was wild and wouldn't study, and was expelled from the name of Perkins, and the landlords complained of the people Mrs. Perkins received and entertained; then Mac put the young man in Mellen's bank, and there he was when the Hayward nieces came back from Europe, and Charlotte married Ned Parry and Fan wished to marry Merriam It was J. H. McLane. Jr., who did Uncle Abe's work for him and went around among Merriam's creditors and got them tn mite in their complaint to the war department; but by that time he had seen somel hing of Randy, had "taken-a shine to him." as he expressed it, and when he learned that Merriam had been banished to the frontier as q consequence he told the old man that he was done with that sort of dirty work, and was minded to go and confess to Miss Hayward what he had done. To buy him off Mellen gave hlIn all the money he needed and bade him go and live the life he always ionged to live, that of prospector and miner in the Sierras. McLane, the ia ther, was away and had been away for several months. Mrs. McLane, the mother, after a furious quarrel with her protector something over year be- fore, had agreed to return to California and never trouble him again upon pay Inent of q big, round sum in cash. She would not listen to a pension, and the story that came to the husbands ears soon after was that at last his Sacra- mento wife had rewarded the fidelity of her cid friend, the steamboat engineer; but the lawyers sent to trace the matter were confronted by unlooked-for news -unwelcome news, and therefore news they fully investigated before report ing, since, if true, it would put an end to what promised to be most profit able case. That $25,0O0 was practically wasted-Mrs. John H. McLane was dead.
 (Continued Tomorrow.)
 PIONEER BAND BALL IN TEMPE.