Read this quote from the beginning of the story: "In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result." What does it tell you about the narrator? He is a stranger from the East, and he uses long words—perhaps to impress others. He is a local in the mining camp who has spent some time back East but now is back. He is a stranger from the West who uses simple language to express himself. He is a world traveler who is familiar with both the East and the West, and he is well-educated.