Chapter V

Bob brushed his clothes and washed his face and hands in a hotel wash-room before he returned to the office. When he came into the City Room, no one paid him any attention. He went to his desk and wrote the story of Jack Brenton’s wife, and handed the manuscript to Dade. The City Editor scanned the pages with swift eyes, said over his shoulder: “Good stuff, Bob.” Then tossed the story to the copy-desk. “Top 7,” he directed. “Good little local story. But you’d better cut it down. Half a column’s enough.”

Bob went back to his desk. He was beginning to feel the reaction; he was somewhat tired. So for a little while he sat idly, doing nothing at all.

Then Boswell, the publisher, came in from the corridor; and Bob saw him, and turned to his typewriter, and inserted a sheet of paper, and began to write. He wrote, over and over again:

_“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”_

The little old reporter wished to appear busy. He was, you see, a good deal of a coward; he was desperately afraid of being fired.

NOT A DRUM WAS HEARD

I

This is, in all essentials, a true story. It came through an old friend from the Southwest, a newspaper man, who telephoned an invitation to lunch the other day. He says he remembers, as a boy, seeing the whole population of his home town embark on horseback, in wagons, and afoot to go to the hanging. That was in 1881; but it was not till twenty years afterward that he heard from one Chris O’Neill the true inwardness of that hanging, as he told it to me over our coffee. The thing happened in a little frontier town in the cow country; and since swift justice and a ready rope were characteristics of the time and the place, it occasioned only passing comment in that day. Nevertheless, the tale may well bear preserving.

I cannot hope to reproduce my friend’s words, nor the atmosphere of those reckless times, so long dead, which he brought back to life for me. Nevertheless, here is the substance of the story that he told.