Home again -- and I'm so much richer than when I left here. That day in the Nuir Woods
and that night in San Francisco revealed much of what is deep in you, and I know now that I love you along with four other men. There are only five men whose friendship has made me feel at once tender and proud, and one of them is dead. Here is the golden company: Sterling, Howard, Noble Kreider, Dr. House, Volney Streamer. Many others have been kind to me; but my feeling toward these is more than gratitude.
I have thought a great deal about Lillith, and am very proud of it. It is rich and beautiful and wise. You know I sent the Eleusis Club the copies of the Dirge. I see that they have been bragging about that honor in the college paper, as well as they might. I'm going to see what can be done about getting you back here for some readings. You'd have the finest kind of reception, and would do the students a lot of good.
I had a fine experience on the homeward trip. Stopped a day at the Crow Indian Agency in Montana, charted a pony & rode over the whole Custer battlefield. Later I hunted up Curly, the Crow scout, who, as you know, was the only survivor of the fight on the Little Horn Well, I had wonderful luck with old Curly. I noticed in my contact with the Omahas that Indians seemed to like me. I don't know why. Curly certainly fell for me! After I thought I was through with him, he hunted me up & brought an interpreter with him. The interpreter said: "Curly he want to say something to you. He like you and he want you to be his brother & he be your brother till you die. He say, you take his ring and wear it, & when you see it, you think of him; and when he have troubles, he tell you and you tell him what to do." I had a silver ring I got from the Pueblos at Santa Fe, & I gave him that & said that he should wear it and think of me too. So I am Curly's brother according to Indian custom! It
was very impressive. The old codger was in deadly earnest.
I received the photos taken in Muir Woods. But you sent both. Didn't you want one? Anyway, I'm sending one back.
Wasn't the Bulletin article a rotten hash? Good God! But that is Journalism!
Good luck in everything, Old Man!
Jno!
