Sentence:  By <WSD>early</WSD> summer , he wrote from Laramie that he was suffering from the wound inflicted in the ambush and was in a bad way financially , so Pels sent him a draft for $ 100 , warning that it was still not wise for him to return . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  at or near the beginning of a period of time or course of events or before the usual or expected time