Chapter XXII (1)

WEARING HIS WEALTH--ATTRACTS THE ATTENTION OF ADVENTURESSES--LOS
ANGELES.

To one who has lived almost alone and unknown for a half hundred years, the change from obscurity to notoriety and fame is swift and novel. Mr. Creede realized that he was attracting the attention of the world, especially the fair ones in search of husbands, in a very short time.

In his little den up the Gulch he had a collection of letters that were interesting reading. They came from the four corners of the earth; from women of every tongue, and almost every walk of life.

The first one I saw was from a St. Louis play actress, who sent photos in which her left foot stands at six o’clock, her right five fifty-five. Her hair was short and cut curly. She said she was “dead weary of the stage,” and that with the prospector’s money and her experience, they could double up and do the world in a way that would make the swells of “Parie” take to the woods, and there was nothing the matter with his coming on and she would meet him on the Q. T., and if she failed to stack up, he could cash in and quit.

July 11, 1892. A Rhode Island preacher writes to ask for help.

“Doubtless,” he began, “you have many letters from people upon whom
the cares of life press heavily, and it must be a source of great
annoyance.”

After dwelling at some length upon his deplorable condition, there was a--

“P. S.--If you can’t send money, please send me a suit of cast-off
clothes, and greatly oblige,
Yours truly,
----.

“N. B.--I send measure, so that you can get an idea of what size I
need. Breast 37, waist 32, leg 33.”

May 17, 1893. A woman with a nose for lucre and a cold nerve, writes from Waxahachie to ask the lucky prospector to “come down and look at her daughter.”

“She is a perfect beauty; has a good solo voice, but is a little
lazy. She has not quite developed, being only thirteen years old; but
if you will take a look at her you will change your mind. She’s a
beauty. She wants to go to Italy or France and study music and if you
will help to educate her you may have her.”

What a cold-blooded proposition is this, soliciting as a horse trader would for some one who has a fortune to take a look at her child thirteen years old!

A lady writes from Canada to borrow three thousand dollars to buy a farm, and adds that one man should not have so much money.

An ambitious young Englishman, who is in love with the “prettiest girl in Hold Hengland,” writes for a “few ’undred to bring ’er hover with.”

July 8, 1892, at Columbus, Ohio, a widow writes the best letter of them all.

“DEAR MR. CREEDE:--Having seen by the papers that y’s hav lots av
money, an’ a good disposition I write y’s to ask a favor. No it’s not
money I wants, nor do I want y’s to marry me. I was as far west as
Colarado wanct, saw the Vergini Mine in Uray County an’ its Terrable
in 1888. Shure it was terrable, too; for then I lost the best friend
av me life--the foreman of the Terrable, he died.

“After that it seemed I had no friends at tall a tall, an’ I came
back to Columbus. Nearly I forgot to say I wus married wanct--but
mind, I’m not wan av thim grassy widdies--I’m bonyfied. Shure if I
was as shure of another as I am that Pat is dead, shure I wo’n’t be
wastin’ me time writin’ to ye. Nearly I forgot to say that what I
want av ye is to find me a good thru and ’onest husband. I’ve lost
all fait in these wishy-washy judes here. Gimme the rough and onest
hand of the mountain, and take away your long-tinnis judes.

“Comparatively speakin’, I was born in the North of Ireland an’ am a
happy disposition.

“Remembher, the man must be noble, ’onest an’ thru. Please write to
me soon.
Very respectfully yours,
----.

“N. B.--After readin’ this I see I was about to leave out the most
impartent part. Now if you can’t find a man with all these good
qualities an’ money too, I’ll take the one wid the ’onest, thru and
noble carocther. Money can niver buy happiness an’ love, an’ that I
prize above everything else. I want a man not less than forty as he
should begin to have some since by that time.

Wanct more I am,
Yours truly,
----.”

Up to the writing of these pages, the mails continue to bring loads of letters from all sorts of cranks. Those from women are turned over to Mrs. Creede; but only a very few, of course, are answered.

In that poet’s Paradise; that dreamy lotus-land, Southern California, Creede has bought a beautiful home. It stands just at the end of Sixth street on Pearl, surrounded by tropical trees, vines and flowers. Here the balmy breezes bring down the scent of cedar from the hills to the north, and the soft sea-winds creep across the lea from the ocean-edge. It’s a pretty place--a pleasant place for weary pilgrims to rest, beyond the waste of a sun-dried sea--

O’er which he toiled, a sea of sand before him,
Dead snakes and withered toads lay on his way;
The desert sun, red, awful, hanging o’er him
The livelong day.

And lo, at last there breaks upon his vision
A paradise with flowers and tropic trees,
Cool, crystal streams that flow throw fields elysian;
Los Angeles.

THE
SILVER QUEEN

A ROMANCE OF THE
EARLY DAYS OF CREEDE CAMP

BY
CY WARMAN AND FITZ MAC

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ZELLA NEILL.

DENVER
THE GREAT DIVIDE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1894

COPYRIGHTED 1894, BY CY WARMAN,
DENVER, COLORADO.

THE SILVER QUEEN.

I.

DENVER, March 15, 1892.

MY DEAR MR. WARMAN:--I notice by the papers that you are getting ready to start a daily in Creede. Your courage is worthy of all astonishment. Don’t you know the gamblers there will shoot you full of holes, and perhaps spoil the only suit you’ve got fit to be buried in, before your paper reaches the tenth number? Whatever you do, wear your old clothes and keep your Sunday suit nice for emergencies. The boys will all chip in and give you a big funeral, but we haven’t any of us got a spare coat fit to bury you in; so take care of your Prince Albert and wear your corduroys till the question is settled one way or the other, for if anything should happen, it would mortify the boys to have to bury in his shirt-sleeves the only poet Colorado has produced.

Well, you are in for it, I suppose, and nothing will stop you, and being in, there is nothing for it now but to “bear thyself so thine enemy may beware thee,” or in other words, heel yourself and face the music like a man. Whatever else you do, don’t show the white feather, for the honor of the press is in your keeping, and if you will immolate yourself, we expect you to die game and not with a bullet in your back. Don’t worry one minute about the obituary notices. That will be all right. The boys will all see you through in good shape and the papers here will all turn rules and celebrate your virtues in such halting meter as can be mustered.

But, seriously, what evil genius tempted you into the project of a daily in Creede, and whose money are you blowing in?

If your ambition is to establish a reputation for courage--going into such a lair of hobos, gamblers and all-round toughs--most people will think it absurdly superfluous in a man--a western man at least--who makes no concealment of the fact, in this _fin de siecle_ era, that he perpetrates poetry and is willing to make his living by it--if he can.

I have no wish to discourage you, Cy, in your present heroic enterprise; but I think, myself, it is wholly unnecessary as an evidence of pluck, after all the poetry you have perpetrated. Everybody knows that a poet--a western poet, especially--takes his life in his hands whenever he approaches a publisher, as recklessly as the man who runs sheep onto a cow range. Of course, no western man would feel any compunction in killing a poet, considering that whatever attention they command in the East makes against our reputation out here for practical horse-sense and energy, and tends to make the underwriters and money-lenders suspicious and raise the rates of interest and insurance.

I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world, for I confess I like your poetry myself, but I think you owe the singular immunity you have enjoyed in Denver above other poets who have bit the dust or emigrated eastward, to the openly-expressed admiration and affection of Myron Reed and Jim Belford and a few other reckless cranks who have intrenched themselves against “the practical horse-sense” which is the pride of our people. As, instance: I happened into that gun-store in the Tabor Block yesterday to provide myself with a jointed fishing-rod against what time I should come down to your funeral--for they tell me the Upper Rio Grande swarms with trout, and I thought I might like to cast a fly, even so early, after seeing you planted, and being shown the spot where you fell. For I fancy some of those toughs whose hearts your inspired verses had touched, commiserating my tears, would come to me and take me gently by the hand and lead me down to the coroner’s office to show me the hole in the breast of your coat--for I never have done you the wrong to imagine the hole anywhere _but_ in the breast where the remorseless bullet tore its way to your brave heart. And then the tender-hearted tough, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, should draw me away and lead me up the street “to see where it happened,” and that he should halt at a certain spot in front of a great flourishing saloon and gambling hall, where I should catch a glimpse through the windows, of battered and frowzy girls in dirty, trailing calico “tea-gowns” and thin slippers, drinking at the bar with the cheaper class of the gamblers or with befuddled miners they were preparing to rob, and he should say: “’Twas right here--right where I’m standin’--and poor Cy, he wuz goin’ along and he wuzn’t sayin’ nothin’ to nobody, ’n’ I was standin’ right across the street there, in the door of Minnie Monroe’s place, an’ Min she wuz leanin’ over my shoulder and we wuz both lookin’ right across at the saloon where Soapy Smith wuz standin’ in the door, readin’ a newspaper out loud to Bob Ford an’ a lot o’ them low-down girls that hangs around there after breakfast till they strike a treat; an’ at every word Soapy he was rippin’ out oaths an’ shakin’ his fist, an’ Min, she says to me: ‘Bill, there’s a row on, les’ go over and see what’s up.’ ’N’ jest at that minute along comes poor Cy--mindin’ his own business ’n’ sayin’ nothin’ to nobody--an’ that’s what I’ll swear to ’fore the grand jury, mister, if I’m called, an’ Min, she’ll swear to the same thing. Nothin’ wouldn’t a’ happened, fur everybody’s back wuz turned, only fur one o’ them low-down trollops stuck her head out o’ the door and s’ys, ‘There’s the ---- ---- ----, now,’ and Bob Ford he looked over his shoulder ’n’ s’ys, ‘Sure ’nough Soapy, there goes your man.’

“Min an’ me heard every word jest as plain as a pin. Cy heard it, too, and he knowed what it meant. He wuz game--I’ll say that fur him--’n’ faced about ’n’ reached fur his gun quicker ’n the jerk of a lamb’s tail in fly time, but Soapy got there first, ’cause he’d rushed out with his gun cocked, and it wuz all day with poor Cy ’fore you could say Jack Robinson.”

“Reached for his gun?” (in imagination I inquire doubtingly)--“then he was--”

“Oh, yes, he was heeled. Cy wuzn’t no chump. He knowed he was takin’ his life in his hands when he jumped that gang an’ began to roast them in his paper. He knowed they’d lay fur him an’ do him up if they ever got the drop on him ’fore he could draw. But oh, say, if poor Cy had just had a show--or even _half_ a show--wouldn’t he shot the everlastin’ stuffin’ out o’ that crowd quicker ’n a cat could lick her ear! That’s what he would, mister, fur he was game an’ he could handle a gun beautiful. But” (in my fancy your worthy tough always draws his sleeve across his face at this juncture) “I suppose it _had_ to be--prob’ly it was God’l Mighty’s will. There’s the pole over yander front o’ Min’s place we strung Soapy and Bob to, an’ there wuzn’t no inquest on _them_--not much there wuzn’t, for the coroner himself helped at the lynchin’--_everybody_ helped ’ceptin’ that pigeon-livered cad of a preacher. He wanted to deliver a lecture to the crowd on the majesty of the law an’ that kind o’ thing, but he got left on his little game that time. Oh, he’s too slow for _this_ camp, mister. The preacher that can’t keep up with the band wagon, ain’t got no business monkeyin’ around a live mining camp like Creede.”

But bless my stars, how my anxiety for you has drawn me into digression? I started to tell you what happened at the gun-store. You know it’s a place where some clever men drop in and lounge a bit and swap sporting stories and smoke a friendly cigar. I heard some one call me to the rear, and going back, I found Belford and their reverences, Tom Uzzell and Myron Reed--God bless their manly souls--and one or two others I did not know. And your friend, the Reverend Myron, was reading aloud to the crowd that fanciful little jingle you had in yesterday’s _Times_ about the beautiful but willful maid who wandered down to the shore of sin and got snatched back by some compunctious Joseph before the undertow caught her, or language to that general effect;--forgive me, I haven’t been able to read it myself and cannot recall a line of it although I recognized it as a gem.

Well, you could see the little crowd was being affected, for Mr. Reed was delivering it with exquisite feeling, and when he had finished, there was a general glance of admiration all round; and Mr. Uzzell remarked that there was a fine sermon--I think, on reflection, that he said a fine, _strong_ sermon--in the verses; and your friend Reed smiled. Then Belford, in a characteristic burst of rhetoric, declared that “The Muses must have kissed in his cradle, the fellow who wrote those lines.” And your friend, the Reverend Myron, smiled out loud, and Belford glanced around the crowd for approval.

I shouldn’t consider that fraternal magnanimity required me to repeat these flattering expressions to you, Cy, only that I feel your doom draws nigh. It is borne in upon me with all the psychic force of a prophecy that you are fated to perish by the ignominious hand of our own and only Soapy, if you persist in starting that daily. You can’t run a daily without saying something, and you can’t say anything that ought to be said without giving mortal offense to the toughs who are running that camp, and you can’t give offense to them without getting shot. It is an ancient saying that “a word to the wise is sufficient”; but it were better to say, as experience proves, that a word to the wise is generally superfluous. Be wise, Cyrus, in your day and generation. Seek fame in other fields. Open a boarding-house or an undertaker’s shop, or both. This will give you a chance to study human nature in all its phases. It is the school for a poet and philosopher. Don’t miss the opportunity. Don’t waste your promising young life writing poetry or running a daily paper to reform the morals of a mining camp. Either is sure to bring you to an ignominious grave. But if, in spite of my prayers and tears, you will persist, send me your paper. I shall have a curiosity to see what sort of a stagger you make at moulding the protoplasm of public opinion into a cellular structure of moral impulse. Send me the paper, _sure_. So-long. God protect you.

Always,
FITZ-MAC.

_P. S._--Now, may confusion take my muddled brains, but I have overlooked the very thing I started to write you about.

The inclosed letter of introduction will make you acquainted with Miss Polly Parsons, a young girl whom I have known from childhood, and in whose welfare I take a serious interest. She is a bright and beautiful girl--and a thoroughly good girl, let me remark--and I want her to know you and feel that she has a friend in you on whom she can call for counsel and protection if need be.

She is under the necessity, not only of making her own living, but of contributing to the support of her father’s family. Her mother and little brother are here, living in two rooms, but her father is in Chicago. I knew the family there years ago when they were very rich, and surrounded by every luxury--fine home on Michigan avenue, carriages and footman and all that. But Parsons went broke a few years ago on grain speculations, and the worst of it is, he lost his courage with his money and is now a broken-spirited man, doing the leg work for brokers and leaving his family to shift for themselves, or pretty nearly so. I suppose it is really impossible for the poor fellow to help them very much or he would, for he loved his wife and children. Polly had every advantage that money could purchase till the old man failed, and she is finely educated. She is a girl of great courage and has an ambition to make a business woman of herself and help her father onto his feet again. She has some of his genius for bold, speculative action, and has taken up stenography and typewriting--not as an end but only as a means.

I am very much afraid she has made a serious misstep in going to Creede and that she will get herself hopelessly compromised before she is done with it.

She has gone down with that Sure Thing Mining Company outfit and I suspect they are a bad lot; but some of them knew her father in the past, and thus gained her confidence. She is too pretty a girl and too inexperienced to be exposed to the associations of a mining camp like Creede, where there are so few decent women, without great danger. She has got courage and an earnest purpose, and those qualities are a woman’s best safeguard; but still, she is only a girl of nineteen or twenty and she doesn’t realize what a delicate thing a woman’s reputation is. It was sheer recklessness for her to go down there; but I didn’t know it till after she was off. Her mother got anxious after she had let her go and came to see me about it. I believe--without positively knowing--that the outfit she has gone to are right-down scamps. They seem to have plenty of money and they have opened a grand office here, but they strike me as bad eggs. A very suspicious circumstance in regard to their motives toward her--to my mind at least--is that they have promised her a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month. That is simply preposterous. (You know that they can get an army of competent stenographers and typewriters at one hundred dollars a month, or even less.) I don’t like the looks of it a bit. I suspect they--or one of them--have designs against the girl.

She is honest to the core, and they will never accomplish her ruin--if that is what they mean. But of course, you must understand, I am only voicing a suspicion, and a very uncharitable one at that; but the odor of the outfit is bad, and they may compromise her hopelessly before she gets her eyes open, and spoil her life.

I want you to hunt her up and keep an eye on her, and put yourself on a square footing with her, so that she will have confidence in you. Above all things, see that she has a boarding place where there is some respectable married woman, and give her a talking to about the camp that will open her eyes. She will take care of herself all right if she is once put on her guard.

I want you to understand she is no pick-up for any rake to trifle with; but a woman is a woman--you know that, Cy, as well as I do--and youth is youth.

She is a good telegrapher--unusually good, I imagine. I mention this so that you may get her employment if that job she has gone to looks at all scaly, and likely to compromise her.

She has great force of character--her father’s temperament before he broke down--and she has taken up all these things to fit herself for that business career to which she aspires. Don’t be deceived by her suave and amiable manner into thinking her a weakling, for she has got _immense_ force of character, and she perfectly believes she is going to have a business career.

I have told her in the letter that you are engaged to the nicest girl in Denver, so as to put you on a confidential footing, and head off your falling in love with her yourself. Be a brother to her, Cy, and keep her out of trouble. God knows you are wicked enough yourself to scent wickedness from afar and see any danger in the path of an attractive girl without experience. Look her up at once--_at once_, mind you--and let me have a good account of yourself as soon as possible.

Affectionately,
FITZ-MAC.

II.

CREEDE, Colo., March 17, 1892.

TO FITZ-MAC, Denver, Colo.

_My Dear Fitz:_--Your letter came here yesterday along with the circulars sent by those peddlers of printing presses and printer’s ink, but I have been so busy getting things in shape to start the _Chronicle_, that there has been little time to look after the beautiful creature of whom you write. Thousands of stenographers have gone from home to take positions where the pay was better, and no great harm has resulted, and why you have become so thoroughly alarmed over the young lady, I am unable to understand. If, as your letter would indicate, she has lived all her life in Chicago, she is perfectly safe in Creede.

I went to the station, or rather to the place where the train stops, this morning, but saw no one who would answer the description of your young lady. Of the three hundred passengers, not more than ten were women, and very ordinary looking women at that.

I know that I could find your friend if she is in the camp, by turning your letter over to Hartigan, the city editor, but he is a handsome young Irishman who quotes poetry by the mile, and the fact that he has a wife in Denver would not prevent him from opening a flirtation at the first meeting.

No, she is better off with the smooth young man than with Hartigan. Tabor, who is to be the local man, is single, but little better than the city editor. He is very susceptible and would fall in love with the young woman and, of course, neglect his work. A morning paper whose editor is threatened with matrimony should keep its working force out of the breakers.

The worst feature, so far as I can see, is the fact that I am unable to locate the Sure Thing Mining Company; but I hope when Mr. Wygant, the advertising man, comes in, he may be able to enlighten me on this point. It is my purpose, so far as possible, to carry advertisements in the _Chronicle_ for none but good companies; and to guard against any impositions, I employed a man who is well known and well acquainted with all the fake schemes; and further, that he may have no serious temptations, he will be paid a salary instead of a commission.

However, there may be a Sure Thing Mining Company, and it may be all right; but I have failed so far to learn anything about it. The camp continues to boom. One of the fraternity shot a thumb off the hand of a fellow sport at Banigan’s last night. I have not taken in the town yet, although the temptation has been very great. Both the rival theaters have tendered me a box, and assured me that I would not be “worked.”

Until now, I never knew what an important personage the editor of a morning paper was. The city marshal called at the office yesterday with a half dozen bottles of beer, which he gave to Freckled Jimmie, the devil, with the explanation that he understood that the editor was a Democrat.

I have made a good impression on society here, I think. The first man I was introduced to when I stepped from the train, was Bob Ford, who, in connection with the Governor of Missouri, removed Jesse James some ten years ago. (He is a pale, sallow fellow with a haunted look, and he is always nervous when his back is to the door.) Fitz, there is a great deal of wickedness in this world, and in a mining camp they make no attempt at hiding it.

If I were not very busy, I should be very unhappy here. From morning till night and from night until morning, the ceaseless tramp, tramp, on wooden walks of the comers and goers is painfully monotonous. Once in a while a pistol-shot echoes in the cañon, and the saddest thing is that it is so common that the players scarcely turn from the tables to see who has fallen in the fight.

And men move on, and give no heed
To life or death,--and this is Creede.

By-and-by it will be different. When we have a city government, crime will be punished. The gambling and other disreputable resorts will be confined to their own quarter, and Creede will become the greatest silver camp on earth.

After paying one thousand dollars on our building and as much on our press and outfit, we had one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars to our credit.

This morning’s mail brought a letter from Mr. Sanders inclosing a Last Chance check for five hundred dollars. The same mail brought D. H. M.’s check for two hundred and fifty dollars with the request that I accept it with his compliments, but he would have no stock. Now these people are all Republicans, and they know that I will run a Democratic paper. In the language of the songster, “That is love.”

I want to say that you do my friend Smith a great injustice, when, in your day-dream, you make him my slayer. He is my personal body-guard. He is also a bitter enemy of Ford’s. Mark you, these men will meet some day--I say some _day_, for it’s never night in Creede,--and whether he do kill Sapolio or Sapolio do kill him, or both,--especially the latter,--the incident will render my position all the more secure.

When Governor Routt was here working the shells on the Smart Alecks who came to camp to buy corner lots cheap, I bought a lot on the shores of the West Willow. The selvage of my property was swept by the rushing waters of the busy little brook; and I gave it out that I wanted that particular lot to have water-power for my press. Of course, all were anxious to aid in the establishment of a morning paper, and the lot came to me at three hundred dollars, the minimum price, which is just thirty times its value. The lot next to mine was reserved by the State for the use of the little brook.

A speculative pirate, by the name of Streepy, built a house over the river and turned the stream through my lot, so now all I own is the river.

In closing, let me assure you that I will do all in my power to locate the young woman, and advise you.

Yours truly,
CY WARMAN.

III.

DENVER, March 20, 1892.

MY DEAR WARMAN:--Yours of the 17th, after some unaccounted-for delay, has but just reached me. Perhaps your gifted postmistress had not time to read it at once, and so held it over till leisure should serve her curiosity; or she may have found unexpected difficulty in deciphering your ingeniously atrocious writing, which I can imagine would only increase the curiosity of a gifted woman.

I once lived where the postmaster, a man of intellectual inclinations, was very slow at reading manuscript, being obliged to spell out the words laboriously, and I found the delay occasioned by the interest he took in studying my epistolary style, to improve his mind, a great annoyance. But a bright thought struck me one day, and I employed a typewriter. After that there was but little delay, for he could read print very well. I offer you the value of this experience, not at all on my account, for I can generally manage to make out what you are writing about pretty closely, but to promote expedition in mail service. It occurs to me to mention, however, _en passant_, that if you fail in that newspaper enterprise, you still have a bright career for your pen before you in the Orient, marking tea-chests. Do not imagine that I am complaining when I say that your friends would find more time to love you if you would employ a typewriter.

But all this is neither here nor there. I am in despair at the devil-may-care tone in which you write about Miss Parsons, and I am really alarmed about her not having arrived. She certainly could not have had much money by her to make a leisurely trip of it, stopping off to see the towns and the scenery _en route_.

Her mother was in a few moments ago, and not having heard from her, is naturally anxious, but I affected to consider it nothing. As a matter of fact, I regard it as very strange and alarming, considering that she left Denver with a man I strongly suspect is a scamp, and if the Sure Thing Mining Company has no office there, the worst is to be feared. It looks very bad.

My hope is, that in your indifference to my request, not appreciating the seriousness of the case, you have not looked around. I suppose it is a matter of no little trouble to find any one, unless you happen upon him, in such a mad rush as has set in for Creede. I met Whitehead of the _News_, who is just back from there, and he says that not only are the platforms even of the cars crowded, but men actually ride on top from Alamosa over, in the craze to get there. What insanity! How can such a rush of people be housed and fed in a camp that contained but five little cabins ninety days ago! But it is all grist for your mill, of course.

Now, _can_ I make you understand the seriousness of this case? You certainly know how easy it is for a villain to compromise a young and pretty girl like Miss Parsons in a place like Creede, and you know that a young girl compromised is already half ruined. As I have said, Polly is a pure-minded, honest girl of great force of character. I consider her taking up and mastering shorthand and typewriting and telegraphing, sufficient evidence of that; but she is inexperienced and unsuspicious, and may find herself undone before she realizes her danger. Besides, that fellow Ketchum is a handsome, unscrupulous man, with an oily tongue in his head.

I have to go to Chicago to-night and I shall be absent two or three weeks, otherwise I would run down to Creede myself--so great is my anxiety about this girl, whom I have known from her cradle.

I must leave the matter in your hands--if I can only make you look at it seriously. Her mother’s address is No. 1796 California street--Mrs. Matilda Parsons. Communicate with her if necessary. I have told her about writing to you, etc.

Probably, while in Chicago, I shall be able to look up her father and will talk with him about the matter. Now please take up this matter seriously and oblige me forever.

_Au revoir_, and good luck to you with the paper.

FITZ-MAC.

IV.

CREEDE, COLO., March 25, ’92.

MY DEAR FITZ:--Since receiving your second letter, I have left nothing undone in the way of keeping a constant lookout for Miss Parsons, for I see how terribly in earnest you are. Yesterday I took dinner at a little restaurant in Upper Creede, and when the girl came to take my order she almost took my breath. There was something about her that told me that she was new at the business; and I began to be hopeful that she might be the young lady for whom I had been looking for the past week. When the rest had left the table, I asked for a second cup of coffee, and when she brought it, I made an attempt to engage the girl in conversation.

“You are very busy here,” I said.

“Yes,” she answered, with a slight raise of the eyebrows, and just a hint of a smile playing round her mouth.

“I presume you get very tired by closing time,” I ventured.

“We never close,” she said; and again I noticed the same movement of the eyes.

I knew she thought I was endeavoring to build up an acquaintance, and it annoyed me. If there is one thing I dislike, it is to be taken for a masher when I am not trying to mash.

“Haven’t I seen you in Denver?”

“Perhaps.”

“Haven’t I seen you with Mr. Ketchum?”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you know Mr. Ketchum?” I asked with some embarrassment.

“Do you?”

“Well, not very intimately,” was my somewhat uncertain reply. “Is he in town?”

The girl laughed in real earnest. When she did compose herself, she asked, “Are you a reporter for the new paper?”

I told her I was not, and then I asked her if she could tell me where Mr. Ketchum’s office was.

It was down the street near the Holy Moses saloon, she said; and I congratulated myself upon having gotten a straight and lucid reply from her.

“Is he in town?” was my next question.

“He was at this table when you came in. Don’t you know him?”

“Not very well,” said I.

“Then how do you know you saw me with Mr. Ketchum?”

I said he must have changed.

“No,” said the girl, showing some spunk. “You don’t know him. You never saw him; but you are trying to be funny. Your name is Lon Hartigan, and I am dead onto you.”

“O, break!--break away!” said a chemical blonde, as she swept in from the kitchen, coming to the rescue of her “partner,” as she called her. “The girls from the Beebee put us onto you and that fellow from New York. You can’t come none of your monkey doodle business here. Mr. Ketchum is the nicest man ’at eats here and he always leaves a dollar under his plate.” And the drug-store blonde snapped her fingers under my nose, whirled on her heel, and banging a soiled towel into a barrel that stood by the door leading to the kitchen, she swept from the room.

“Will you bring me some hot coffee?” I said, softly, to the girl with her own hair.

“You misjudge me,” I began, as she set it down.

“I am sorry,” she replied with a hemi-smile that hinted of sympathy, but is worse than no sympathy.

“Now, see here,” I began, “I’ll tell you my name if you’ll tell me yours. My name is Warman.”

“My name is Boyd--Inez Boyd,” said the girl, “and I am sorry to have talked as I have, to you.”

“Don’t mention it,” said I, as I left the room.

Outside I saw a sign which read: “The Sure Thing Mining and Milling Company, Capital Stock, $1,000,000.”

The next moment I stood in the outer office, saw a sign on a closed door: “F. I. Ketchum--Private.”

I opened a little wooden gate, stepped to the private entrance and knocked. A tall, good-looking man of thirty-five to forty, with soft gray hair, came out and closed the door quickly.

“Is this Mr. Ketchum?” I asked.

“Yes sir, what can I do for you?”

Now that was a sticker. It had not occurred to me that to call a man out of his private office one ought to have some business.

“I’m the editor of the _Chronicle_ and I just dropped in to get acquainted. I have heard of your company.”

The man looked black. “We are not looking for newspaper notoriety,” he said, without offering me a seat. In short, he didn’t rave over me, as some of the real estate men did, and after asking how the property of the company was looking, I went away. Poor as I am, I would have given twenty to have seen into the “Private” room.

I write all this in detail, that you may know how hard I have tried to do my duty to you as a friend, and to the poor unfortunate girl, as a man. I shall have more time from now on, as I have for my superintendent and general master mechanic, Mr. J. D. Vaughan, who can make a newspaper, from the writing of the editorial page, to the mailing list. In the past, as now, he has always been with distinguished men. He was with Artemus Ward at Cleveland, Wallace Gruelle, at Louisville, Bartley Campbell, at New Orleans, Will L. Visscher when he ran the “Headlight,” on board the steamer Richmond running between Louisville and New Orleans, and with Field and Rothaker on the Denver _Tribune_.

We got out our first issue Monday, and I feel a great deal better. It has been the dream of my life to have a daily paper, and we have got one now that is all wool and as wide as the press will print. I have this line under the heading:

“Polities: Free Coinage; Religion: Creede.”

I think that line will last. It is what we must live for and hope for. Of course, we expect to lose money for a few months; but if the camp continues to grow, the Chronicle Publishing Company will be a good venture. There are many hardships to be endured in a mining camp. The printers had to stand in an uncovered house and set type while the snow drifted around their collars. They held a meeting in the rear office Sunday, organized a printers’ union, fixed a schedule to suit themselves--fifty cents a thousand; and, in order that I might not feel lonely, I was made an honorary member of the union.

Mr. George W. Childs was taken in at the same time. My salary is to be fifty dollars a week; but I don’t intend to draw my salary until the paper is on a paying basis.

We have not got our motor in place yet, and I had to pay two Mexicans twelve dollars for turning the press the first night. Coal is ten dollars a ton; coal oil sixty cents a gallon. We use a ton of coal every twenty-four hours and five gallons of oil every night. It was a novel sight to see the newsboys running here and there through the willows, climbing up the steep sides of the gulch to the tents and cabins crying “Morning _Chronicle_!” where the mountain lion and the grizzly bear had their homes but six months ago. The interesting feature in the first issue is a three-column account of Gambler Joe Simmons’ funeral. It tells how the gang stood at the grave and drank “To Joe’s soul over there--if there is any over there.”

Yours always,
CY WARMAN.

IV.

CREEDE, COLO., March 28, 1892.

DEAR FITZ:--Three days ago I wrote you that I had located Mr. Ketchum but failed to find the girl. Yesterday being Sunday, I went down to the hot springs at Wagon Wheel Gap to spend the day. At the hotel I met Mrs. McCleland, of Alamosa, and while we were conversing, a lady commenced to sing in the parlor. The soft notes that came from the piano mingled with a voice so full of soulful melody, that I stopped talking and listened. “Do you like music?” asked the good lady from the San Luis. “There is but one thing sweeter,” I said, “and that is poetry--the music of the soul. Take me in, won’t you?”

We entered so softly that the young woman at the piano failed to notice our coming, and sang on to the end of the piece.

“La Paloma!” How different from the strains I had heard during the past week, from the Umpah band in front of the Olympic Theater.

When she had finished, the singer turned, blushed, and rising, advanced toward my friend, holding out her hand; and I was surprised and pleased to hear Mrs. Mc. say: “Well, I want to know--are you here?”

The young lady acknowledged that she was, and went into a long explanation that she had concluded to stop at the springs until matters were in a little better shape at Creede.

“Where is Mr. ----, Mr. ----,” stammered Mrs. Mc.

“Oh, he’s in Creede,” said the young lady, as she shot a glance at me which was followed by a becoming blush. “He is so busy at the mines; they work a great many men, you know.”

All this time I had been looking over Mrs. McCleland’s shoulder into an exceedingly bright and interesting face.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the good lady, “this is Mr. Warman, Miss Parsons.”

I don’t know for the life of me, whether I said “Howdy,” or “Good-by,” I was dazed. I had forgotten the while I looked into that beautiful face, that such a person lived as Polly Parsons, and when it came to me all at once like the firing of a blast, it took the wind out of my sails and left me helpless in mid-ocean.

“Where did you meet Miss Parsons?” I asked, when the young lady had left the room.

“At Alamosa, some two weeks ago, she stopped at our hotel, and I didn’t like the looks of the man she was with; so I asked her to sleep in a spare room just off from my own.

“I heard him trying to persuade her to go to Creede with him the next day, but could not understand what her argument was, except that she would not go to Creede until there was something for her to do.”

“Who was this man?” I asked.

“His name is Ketchum; he is connected with the Sure Thing Mining Company.”

“At last!” I said with a sigh that was really a relief to me.

After luncheon, I gave the letter you sent, to Miss Parsons, and I watched her face while she read it.

Of one of two things I am convinced; either she loves you and was glad to see that letter, or she hates you and will do as much for me. That is as near as you can guess a pretty woman.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, Miss Parsons--” “O, I am quite capable of getting along alone,” she said. “I thank you, of course, but there is nothing; I am promised a good position in Mr. Ketchum’s office as soon as they get things in shape. I have some ready money with me, enough to pay my expenses at the hotel.”

“You will not find so pleasant a hotel in Creede as this, Miss Parsons. The Pattons are nice people, and it would be better, I think, for you to remain here until a position is open for you,” I ventured by way of advice.

“Mr. Ketchum has engaged a room for me over the Albany Restaurant,” she said, “and he is to call here for me to-morrow.”

“But, Miss Parsons,” said I, “do you know what sort of a place that is?”

“I know, sir, that Mr. Ketchum would not take me to an improper place,” and she gave her head a twist that told me that my advice was not wanted.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Parsons,” said I, by way of explanation; “I was thinking of the Albany Theater building; the restaurant may be all right. But I was thinking only of your welfare.”

“Thank you,” she said, but she meant “Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Good-by, Miss Parsons,” I said, extending my hand. “Hope I may have the pleasure of meeting you in Creede.”

“I go to Creede to-morrow,” she said as she gave me a warm, plump hand and said “Good-by.”

Fitz, forgive me for being so slow; but you forgot to tell me how beautiful she was; the Poet of the Kansas City _Star_ would say: “Her carriage, face and figure are perfection; and her smile is a shimmer-tangled day-dream, as she drifts adown the aisle.” Such eyes! like miniature seas, set about with weeping willows, and hair like ripening grain, with the sunlight sifting through it.

Good-by,
CY WARMAN.

V.

GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL,
CHICAGO, April 8.

DEAR CY:--Your two letters of the 25th and 28th ult., forwarded from Denver, were received here only this morning on my return from Milwaukee, where I have been for the past week negotiating the sale of that Eagle Gulch mining property, in which I am interested. I think it will be a go, and if so, I shall be heeled--otherwise busted.

It was very good of you, old boy, to take so much trouble to look Miss Parsons up and to “locate” that scamp Ketchum. I shall not be anxious, now that I know you will keep an eye on her. But you are clear off, Cy, as to her loving or hating me.

No doubt she likes me a little bit, for I have long been a friend of the family; and they were always kind to me when they were rich, and I have carried pretty Polly around in my arms when she was a baby. I knew her father back in Virginia before they were married.

Pretty? I should think she is pretty. That is why I felt so particularly anxious about her going to Creede. If she had been a ewe-necked old scrub of a typewriter, with a peaked nose and a pair of gooseberry eyes in her head, do you fancy I could have been solicitous about her not being able to take care of herself or have dreamt of interesting you in her?

Cyrus, my princely buck, if there was any “peculiar light” in pretty Polly’s eyes, it was admiration for your manly figure. You are too modest to ever do yourself justice.

I am glad you found Ketchum and the Sure Thing Mining Company. I had to laugh at the mystery you make of that back room into which you were not permitted to peep. No doubt he was working some pilgrim in there to whom he expected to sell stock, and did not want to be interrupted.

I met a broker the other day who knew him well here. He is a scamp, as I thought; but not exactly the kind of scamp I thought. He has had a career on the Exchange here and was once a heavy operator and made big money, but his reputation was never first-class and it has become decidedly odorous of late years through his connection with snide stock schemes of one kind and another. But he has kept out of jail and isn’t a person a man can exactly refuse to speak to.

He worked a Napoleonic confidence deal in grain here, some five or six years back, and came within an ace of cleaning up a million or more on it; but the fraud was discovered and the bubble exploded, leaving him beggared both in fortune and reputation. He had tangled a lot of respectable operators up in the scheme, so that it did not look so very bad for him personally, and he escaped prosecution. Since then he has figured as a promoter, keeping himself in the shade.

Parsons, Polly’s father, was the man who discovered and defeated his fraud; and the story goes here, that in revenge, he set the trap into which Parsons fell and lost all except his honor. Parsons has a good name here still, I find, among the brokers, because he made an honest settlement, although it left him penniless and broken-spirited. It is strange that he hasn’t come to see me. I tried to find him when I first came; but he was always somewhere else, and when I went to Milwaukee, I left a note for him, but have heard nothing. I shall try to see him before I leave.

I find Ketchum has a wife and some children here, and that he doesn’t figure as a Lothario at all as I suspected. On the contrary, he is quite a model in his domestic relations--takes his family to church and all that, and is a shining light in the Sunday-school and the Y. M. C. A. So I fancy our pretty Polly is in no great danger from him. It is singular though, why he should have engaged the daughter of a man whom he must hate, as his confidential clerk--and at such a preposterous salary, too. It is suspicious; but after all, it may be a freak of kindness, finding the man whose ruin he has planned so destitute. It is just as safe to take the charitable view as any, even of a scamp. Human motives are always mixed.

I cannot say when I will be at home; but write often, directing to Denver, and keep a brotherly eye on our pretty Polly.

Yours,
FITZ-MAC.

VI.

GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL,
CHICAGO, April 9, 9 o’clock P. M.

DEAR WARMAN:--I must write in great haste, for in an hour I leave for New York. It is quite unexpected. I expect the Milwaukee party here in a quarter of an hour to go with me.

In all probability I shall not be back to Denver before the first of May, if then,--for, being in New York, I shall probably stop and attend to some other matters.

I wrote you last night, and now I want to correct the impressions of that letter.

When does one ever hear the last word of a bad story. That fellow Ketchum is even more of an all-round scoundrel than I thought. I have heard a lot about him to-day; ran upon a man who was his head book-keeper and confidential man here in his heyday, and whom he robbed, as he has everybody else who has had anything to do with him. I was out looking up Parsons among the brokers’ offices. He has been a sort of fly-about these last years, into this, that, and every little pitiful scheme, to turn a dollar, and having a desk always in the office of the latest man he could interest in his projects, so he is about as hard to find as the proverbial needle in the hay-mow.

Nobody is specially interested in keeping track of him, now that he is down.

Well, in my hunt, I ran upon a Mr. Filmore who told me where he boards--a cheap and shabby place, poor fellow. He was not there; hasn’t been for two weeks or more. Landlady surmised he had gone to join his family somewhere out West--in California, she guessed--didn’t know when he would be back; didn’t know that he would ever be back. Oh, yes, she supposed he _would_ be back _some time_,--no, he hadn’t left any address to have his mail forwarded. The purveyor of hash supposed Mr. Parsons received his mail at his office--he certainly did not receive any there. Was I a detective? Had Mr. Parsons been getting into trouble? Oh, Cy, the misery of being very poor after having been very rich! The Lord deliver me from it! Poor Parsons, one of the finest and proudest of gentlemen, to be spoken of in such a tenor at the street door of a cheap boarding-house!

Is it any wonder his brave, good little girl is frantic to do something to help him onto his feet again and out of such an atmosphere?

He may be in Colorado; and if he is, you may be called upon to record the sudden death of that scamp Ketchum, any day.