Year: 1875

~AOeo

 difficulty.

 One day he and wife No. 2 were re turning from Lake Tahoe. They had

 compartment in the palace car iron

 Summit. The station there is in tn,

 snow sheds, and therefore the interior O.

 the car was somewhat dark. The trair

 ran down the mountain for an hour or SC

 and presently left the snow sheds behind

 and emerged into the light. Miller Jeff

 the compartment to get his wife a glass

 of water. As he passed through the cal

 he saw in 8 section wife No. 1, with he1

 father and sister, on their way to Sar

 Francisco on pleasure trip. The re-

 cognition was mutual. Wife No. linear

 ly tainted with delight. Quick as a flash

 Miller formed his determination what to

 do. Two circumstances favored him,

 Wife No. was in her stateroom reading

 book and oat of sight. Nobody in the

 car knew him, and this fortified him.

 He kissed wife No. l with great ardor

 and shook hands with the old gentle

 man. Then he asked to be excused for

 just an instant. There were some gen. tlemen in another part of the car with

 whom he had left some unfinished busi- ness. ....

 

 made an excuse for another brief ab- sence. Then he went back and sat down by wife No. 1, and happy re- union was enacted. He said that he had arrived from Australia only few days before. That he had some business with some California wool men which had detained him for 8 few days; that he was then going home to surprise and delight his wife and make her comfor- table and happy for the remainder of her days. He had not written her be- cause he wanted to surprise her. He had got rich in Australia, but still he had to return as soon as possible. Her coming to California was most forum ate circumstance, for now he could see her without going East. They could be happy for week or. ten days, and then he could sail on the same steamer he came on instead of waiting for the next, which left month later. Wife No. l demurred at this, but Miller, knowing that he could not keep up the deception for month, insisted that he should sail in ten days.

 As the train sped along Miller, while chatting with the coolness of Mephisto- pheles, was matching plan to get wife No. 2 out of the car without wife No. Is seeing her. Wife No. 2 wanted to stop at Sacramento and go to San Fran cisco by later train. He mentally re- solved that wife No. and her party should not go to San Francisco at all if he could prevent it. So he at once told her that he had some important business in Sacramento, and must stop over there that night. Of course she and her party must stop too. Wife No. l consented. Wife No. 2 was managed just as skill fully. The train makes 8 stop of twenty minutes at Sacramento. She was asked to keep her seat in the compartment un- til he could get carriage to take her to a friends house. When the train stop ped Miller hastened wife No. 1 and party out of the rear end of the car, showed them hastily into carriage, and told the driver to take them to the hotel: Then he got wife No. 2 out, put her in a carriage, and sent her to her friends, saying he would call for her at train time. This gave him breathing spell, which he employed in perfecting his plans to evade detection. These were carried out. and so well was everything managed that wife No. never suspected anything, and wife No. 1 never dreamed that her husband was but A. R. Woodruff, and that his Australian story was false. .

 Miller's house was just finished when this occurred, and as wife No. 2 was about to have it furnished, he told her that he would relieve her of his pres ence by going off for week to the Yo- semitic. To wife No. he said that be- fore going back to Australia he wanted to go to the Yosemite, and as they would doubtless like the trip, he would take them. They all went, and on the trip or soon after, Miller made wife No. l present of $60, ,000 in United States bonds -" part of the fortune he had made in Australia.

 But the presence of wife No. 1 was still fraught with more danger. On their return from the Yosemite, and imme- diately before wife No. l returned to the East, she insisted upon staying 8 few days in San Francisco. Miller was very anxious to hasten her departure, but still he had to give in and take her to San Francisco. They put up at the Lick House. Fortunately wife No. did not | like San Francisco, so to- Miller's great relief she cut her stay short Before go- ing he took her to dry goods store and bought her $1, 800 worth of goods. Subsequently the bill wassent to Miller's house, and fell into the hands of wife No. 2, to whom it was cause of alarm. But Miller quieted her by saying that he had only ordered the goods for the wife of friend of his in Portland, Oregon, and the bill was made out in his name by mistake. .f@'