VII.
Creede, Colo., April 13, ’93.Dear Fitz:—Your letter of the 9th, in which you hasten to undo what you did for Ketchum in the preceding letter, if it had no other purpose, was unnecessary. You can never make me believe that a man who eats mashed potatoes with a knife, dips his soup toward him and lets his trousers trail in the mud, has been brought up in respectable society. If anything morewas needed to convince me that Ketchum was a shark, it was supplied by him when he told Wygant that he regarded “advertising as unprofessional and unnecessary.” The newspapers, he said, did more harm than good. Now, when you hear a man talk that way, you can gamble that he is working the shells and that his game won’t stand airing.In speaking of the embarrassment of becoming very poor after having been very rich, you amuse me, by praying to be delivered from that awful condition. Rest easy, my good fellow. If you follow your chosen path, that of mixing literature with mining, you will doubtless be independently poor the balance of your days.Well, Miss Parsons is here. She is boarding at the Albany. The Albany is all right. It is the best place inthe gulch; but, of course, you never know who is going to occupy the next seat. Last night, at dinner, the Rev. Tom Uzzell, the city editor and Soapy sat at one table; a murderer, a gambler, a hand-painted skirt-dancer and a Catholic priest held another, while Miss Parsons, Billy Woods, the prize-fighter, English Harry and I, ate wild duck at a large table near the stove. I introduced Harry, who is an estimable young man, belonging to one of the best families in Denver, with the hope that Miss Parsons might have an opportunity to see the difference between a real gentleman and that social leper, Ketchum. After dinner I told Harry that I wanted him to make love to Miss Parsons.“But, I don’t love her,” says he.“No matter,” says I.“It’s wicked,” says he.“It’s right,” says I. “It will save her from a life of misery.”“What’s the matter with you?” says he. “If it’s the proper thing to make love to a sweet young woman whom you don’t love, why don’t you do it?”Two men talkingI told him that I was too busy—that I hadn’t any love that I was not using—that I had done my share in that line. Still he was serious; but finally promised to be a near relative, if he could not love her.I think I shall open an agency for the protection of unprotected girls. I had luncheon at Upper Creede yesterday, and was shocked when Inez Boyd came in with fresh drug-store hair. Fitz, she is not so beautiful as Miss Parsons; but she is in greater danger,because she is not so strong, and has not had the advantage of early training as Miss Parsons has.“Jimmie,” said I to the little devil this morning, “I want you to take a bundle of papers; go up the gulch until you come to the office of the Sure Thing Mining Company; go in and try to sell a paper. You may take an hour each day for this and loaf as long as you care to in the office, unless they kick you out.”“Sure thing they’ll do that,” said Jimmie.“Stop! Keep an eye on Mr. Ketchum, and tell me how many people are working in the office.”Two hours later Jimmie came in with his pockets filled with silver. “Sold all my papers,” said he, as he fell over the coal scuttle. “Ketchum bought ’em all to get ridof me. Guess he wanted to talk to that girl he had in the office. Say, she’s a bute. Must got ’er in Denver; they don’t grow like that in dis gulch. They was a scrappin’ like married people when I went in, and he wanted to throw me out. Not on your life, I told him; I’m the devil on theChronicleand dat gang’ll burn you up if ye monkey wid me.”Jimmie“What were they quarreling about, Jimmie?”“O, ’bout where she was to room, an’ he told her she could sleep in de private office; an’ you ort to see her then! Mama! but she did lock up his forms for him in short order. Then she said she’d go home; but she’d like to see the mine ’fore she worked fur stock. She’s no chump. Say, he aint got no mine.”“You think not, Jimmie?” I said to encourage him.“Naw. I went over to the Candle office and Lute Johnson’s goin’ to cremate ’em nex’ issue.”I learned to-day that Ketchum had been accepting money from tenderfeet, promising to issue stock, as soon as the stock-books can be printed. I learn also that the Sure Thing Mining Company has no legal existence; that the Sure Thing claim belongs to Ketchum personally.The camp continues to produce sorrow and silver at the regular ratio of sixteen to one. Old Hank Phelan, of St. Joe, died on the sidewalk in front of the Orleans Club last night. I showed my ignorance by asking a gang who stood round the dead man, at the coroner’s inquest, who the distinguished dead might be.“Say, pardner,” said one of the sporty boys, “I reckon you don’t ever look in a paper. Don’t know Hank Phelan, as licked big Ed. Brown, terror of Oklahoma?” And they all went inside and left me to grope my way out of the dense ignorance that had settled about me.ManBob Ford and Joe Palmer, with a pair of forty-five’s, closed all the business houses and put the camp to bed at 9:30, one night last week. In an excited effort to escape, the New YorkSunman and the city editor broke into the dormitory of the Hotel Beebee, where the help slept, and two of the table girls who had been protecting against them, jumped out of a window into the river.A man was killed by a woman in Upper Creede the other night.The City Marshal, Captain Light, concluded that Red McCann was a menace to good government and so removed him. His funeral, which occurred last Sunday, was well attended. There was some talk next day by McCann’s friends. They even went so far as to hold an inquest; but Cap was well connected, being a brother-in-law to Sapolio, and he was spirited away.Man at printing pressTheChronicleis not on a paying basis yet. The twelve hundred dollars has disappeared; and I have transferred my personal savings here to pay the printers. The schedule is the same and I am working for nothing. We have had a strike. Yesterday was a pay day and Freckled Jimmie, the devil, went out at 6P. M.Jimmie had been with us through all these days of doubt and danger, and when he failed to show up this morning, I confess to a feeling ofloneliness. Another boy dropped in to take Jimmie’s place; but he was not freckled and I doubted him. About 10 the new boy went to the post-office. He never came back. I remarked that it was not becoming in the editor of a great daily to sit and pine for a boy; and yet, I could not shake off that feeling of neglect that came to me in the early morning and stayed all day. We expected the devil to call upon us, looking to a compromise; but he failed to call. Along in theP. M.-ness, we sent a committee to wait upon Jimmie and ask him to visit the office. He came in, chewing a willow bough.“Well, Jimmie,” I began, “How would it suit you to come back to work at a raise of a dollar a week?”“Well,” said the striker, “I don’t kere ef I do or not; but ef you’ll let it lap back, over last week, I’ll goyou. But mind, you don’t call me ‘Freck’ no more. My name’s Jimmie from now on, see?” Jimmie is working.Hope I may be able to give you some good news in my next.So-long,Cy Warman.
Creede, Colo., April 13, ’93.
Dear Fitz:—Your letter of the 9th, in which you hasten to undo what you did for Ketchum in the preceding letter, if it had no other purpose, was unnecessary. You can never make me believe that a man who eats mashed potatoes with a knife, dips his soup toward him and lets his trousers trail in the mud, has been brought up in respectable society. If anything morewas needed to convince me that Ketchum was a shark, it was supplied by him when he told Wygant that he regarded “advertising as unprofessional and unnecessary.” The newspapers, he said, did more harm than good. Now, when you hear a man talk that way, you can gamble that he is working the shells and that his game won’t stand airing.
In speaking of the embarrassment of becoming very poor after having been very rich, you amuse me, by praying to be delivered from that awful condition. Rest easy, my good fellow. If you follow your chosen path, that of mixing literature with mining, you will doubtless be independently poor the balance of your days.
Well, Miss Parsons is here. She is boarding at the Albany. The Albany is all right. It is the best place inthe gulch; but, of course, you never know who is going to occupy the next seat. Last night, at dinner, the Rev. Tom Uzzell, the city editor and Soapy sat at one table; a murderer, a gambler, a hand-painted skirt-dancer and a Catholic priest held another, while Miss Parsons, Billy Woods, the prize-fighter, English Harry and I, ate wild duck at a large table near the stove. I introduced Harry, who is an estimable young man, belonging to one of the best families in Denver, with the hope that Miss Parsons might have an opportunity to see the difference between a real gentleman and that social leper, Ketchum. After dinner I told Harry that I wanted him to make love to Miss Parsons.
“But, I don’t love her,” says he.
“No matter,” says I.
“It’s wicked,” says he.
“It’s right,” says I. “It will save her from a life of misery.”
“What’s the matter with you?” says he. “If it’s the proper thing to make love to a sweet young woman whom you don’t love, why don’t you do it?”
Two men talking
I told him that I was too busy—that I hadn’t any love that I was not using—that I had done my share in that line. Still he was serious; but finally promised to be a near relative, if he could not love her.
I think I shall open an agency for the protection of unprotected girls. I had luncheon at Upper Creede yesterday, and was shocked when Inez Boyd came in with fresh drug-store hair. Fitz, she is not so beautiful as Miss Parsons; but she is in greater danger,because she is not so strong, and has not had the advantage of early training as Miss Parsons has.
“Jimmie,” said I to the little devil this morning, “I want you to take a bundle of papers; go up the gulch until you come to the office of the Sure Thing Mining Company; go in and try to sell a paper. You may take an hour each day for this and loaf as long as you care to in the office, unless they kick you out.”
“Sure thing they’ll do that,” said Jimmie.
“Stop! Keep an eye on Mr. Ketchum, and tell me how many people are working in the office.”
Two hours later Jimmie came in with his pockets filled with silver. “Sold all my papers,” said he, as he fell over the coal scuttle. “Ketchum bought ’em all to get ridof me. Guess he wanted to talk to that girl he had in the office. Say, she’s a bute. Must got ’er in Denver; they don’t grow like that in dis gulch. They was a scrappin’ like married people when I went in, and he wanted to throw me out. Not on your life, I told him; I’m the devil on theChronicleand dat gang’ll burn you up if ye monkey wid me.”
Jimmie
“What were they quarreling about, Jimmie?”
“O, ’bout where she was to room, an’ he told her she could sleep in de private office; an’ you ort to see her then! Mama! but she did lock up his forms for him in short order. Then she said she’d go home; but she’d like to see the mine ’fore she worked fur stock. She’s no chump. Say, he aint got no mine.”
“You think not, Jimmie?” I said to encourage him.
“Naw. I went over to the Candle office and Lute Johnson’s goin’ to cremate ’em nex’ issue.”
I learned to-day that Ketchum had been accepting money from tenderfeet, promising to issue stock, as soon as the stock-books can be printed. I learn also that the Sure Thing Mining Company has no legal existence; that the Sure Thing claim belongs to Ketchum personally.
The camp continues to produce sorrow and silver at the regular ratio of sixteen to one. Old Hank Phelan, of St. Joe, died on the sidewalk in front of the Orleans Club last night. I showed my ignorance by asking a gang who stood round the dead man, at the coroner’s inquest, who the distinguished dead might be.
“Say, pardner,” said one of the sporty boys, “I reckon you don’t ever look in a paper. Don’t know Hank Phelan, as licked big Ed. Brown, terror of Oklahoma?” And they all went inside and left me to grope my way out of the dense ignorance that had settled about me.
Man
Bob Ford and Joe Palmer, with a pair of forty-five’s, closed all the business houses and put the camp to bed at 9:30, one night last week. In an excited effort to escape, the New YorkSunman and the city editor broke into the dormitory of the Hotel Beebee, where the help slept, and two of the table girls who had been protecting against them, jumped out of a window into the river.
A man was killed by a woman in Upper Creede the other night.
The City Marshal, Captain Light, concluded that Red McCann was a menace to good government and so removed him. His funeral, which occurred last Sunday, was well attended. There was some talk next day by McCann’s friends. They even went so far as to hold an inquest; but Cap was well connected, being a brother-in-law to Sapolio, and he was spirited away.
Man at printing press
TheChronicleis not on a paying basis yet. The twelve hundred dollars has disappeared; and I have transferred my personal savings here to pay the printers. The schedule is the same and I am working for nothing. We have had a strike. Yesterday was a pay day and Freckled Jimmie, the devil, went out at 6P. M.Jimmie had been with us through all these days of doubt and danger, and when he failed to show up this morning, I confess to a feeling ofloneliness. Another boy dropped in to take Jimmie’s place; but he was not freckled and I doubted him. About 10 the new boy went to the post-office. He never came back. I remarked that it was not becoming in the editor of a great daily to sit and pine for a boy; and yet, I could not shake off that feeling of neglect that came to me in the early morning and stayed all day. We expected the devil to call upon us, looking to a compromise; but he failed to call. Along in theP. M.-ness, we sent a committee to wait upon Jimmie and ask him to visit the office. He came in, chewing a willow bough.
“Well, Jimmie,” I began, “How would it suit you to come back to work at a raise of a dollar a week?”
“Well,” said the striker, “I don’t kere ef I do or not; but ef you’ll let it lap back, over last week, I’ll goyou. But mind, you don’t call me ‘Freck’ no more. My name’s Jimmie from now on, see?” Jimmie is working.
Hope I may be able to give you some good news in my next.
So-long,Cy Warman.