He had been taken
to that town by some good persons distantly related
to his dead father, and by them adopted and ten-
derly cared for. But on that evening the poor child
had strayed from home and was lost in the desert.
His after history is involved in obscurity and has
gaps which conjecture alone can fill. It is known that
he was found by a family of Piute Indians, who kept
the little wretch with them for a time and then sold
him--actually sold him for money to a woman on
one of the east-bound trains, at a station a long
way from Winnemucca. The woman professed to
have made all manner of inquiries, but all in vain:
so, being childless and a widow, she adopted him
herself. At this point of his career Jo seemed to be
getting a long way from the condition of orphanage;
the interposition of a multitude of parents between
himself and that woeful state promised him a long
immunity from its disadvantages.
Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleve-
land, Ohio. But her adopted son did not long remain
with her. He was seen one afternoon by a police-
man, new to that beat, deliberately toddling away
from her house, and being questioned answered that
he was 'a doin' home.' He must have travelled by
rail, somehow, for three days later he was in the
town of Whiteville, which, as you know, is a long
way from Blackburg. His clothing was in pretty fair
condition, but he was sinfully dirty.
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