Brother Ezekiel, I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. I write to you now in hopes of beseeching you come to your senses about Mary Elizabeth. I know you think she loves you, dear brother, but open your eyes…she only wants you for your fancy pantaloons!

I knew from the moment that Mary Elizabeth first laid her greedy eyes on the fake pearl buttons on your trousers in Fort Laramie that a gold-sifter was about to enter our lives. In that moment, she realized she had found her ticket to all the wealth of the west, because she found the kind of buster that would spend a whole half-dollar on some pantaloons.

Ezekiel, you are a good man, as strong as a mule and twice as stubborn, but you have mistaken Mary’s eye-glitter for gold. True love is not found in a mine, or sifting for hours in a riverbed. No, true love is eating beans out of a muddy boot with your lady after losing your whole crew to a tunnel collapse.

Do you not notice a trend in her letters? “How prospers your digging?” “Haven’t you struck a gold vein yet?” “Try and find some silver at least, I need a new corset.” There is no love in her words, only lustful coin-counting. Brother, the day you fail to come home with an ounce of gold flakes in your pockets, is the day Mary Elizabeth ups and outta there’s faster than an unguarded bottle o’ whiskey in a saloon. Think about it, when was the last time she ever asked about your blistered hands? Or your sun-burnt neck? Not once!

So, I beg of you, dear brother, do not let your heart be snatched by this woman. Find somebody who would love you even if your fortune were nothing more than a chunk of fool’s gold and a rusted pickaxe.