She had come to the mining towns in search of her husband. He'd disappeared at a place called Collins Diggings, or so she was told, but being three thousand miles away she couldn't be sure.
In those days there were trains that went nearly all the way to the Diggings. There was a coach that went the rest of the way, but she couldn't believe the fare so she walked the dark road alone, carrying her valise and her oil painting.
It was rough country. She found a rooming house and arranged with Mrs. Lee the owner to help out in the kitchen. Too late to eat. She crawled into bed and noted the sheets were unclean.
First thing she did was strip all the beds. Mrs Lee said she had no other sheets.
``Then let them sleep without sheets a day or two,'' she said.
At the end of the week the place looked cleaner. She even put wild flowers on the dining table. The odd thing was that in all that town no one had heard of her husband. It was a town of strangers. She talked to the bankers, the assay office. She even went to the bars. Nothing.
``But I had a letter,'' she said, ``with a postmark - look - Collins Diggings.''
``He might have changed his name,'' someone said.
``Why would he do that?''
Who would know.
``His eye,'' she said, ``his left eye looked off sideways - ''
``Ah!'' said a hooker in the Broadway Saloon, ``I might of seen him. No I didn't have no doings with him. I seen a man like that. Don't know nothing about him though.''
She set up a school in her room because there was no school in town and she made some money and she took in sewing and she cooked and served in the kitchen but things cost so much she couldn't save and she knew if her man was in this town he was six feet under. When she went to buy apples for pie and found them three dollars the pound she decided hard work wasn't the answer.
She displayed her painting in the door and announced a raffle. It was a good oil painting of two children in a garden. Anyone would like it. She sold two hundred tickets at a dollar apiece and no one claimed the winning ticket which was not surprising since she held it herself.
She left that night on the train for San Francisco and hired a detective.
He said he'd need two hundred dollars to get started on the case.
He took the few papers she had and a hundred dollars and that was the last she heard of him. She tried the raffle scam one more time and got thrown out of town and lost the painting to boot. Some judge's wife took it home.
In Sacramento she got a job caring for a woman dying of some wasting disease.
Madge was just out of jail.
``They say I helped in a killing,'' she said. ``I didn't do no such thing. I was just there. Some fellow had put his money to interest and cashed in a couple of thousand. Then he got drunk and flashed it around some bar up there at Collins Diggings. The fellow I was with got me to invite this guy out back for a little fun and then he killed him and took his money and threw his body in the Truckee river. Funny looking guy. Had an eye that looked off to the side ...''