--he shall harvest his share.


SILVER GULCH, May 19
I placarded Form No. 1 at midnight of April 3; an hour later I slipped
Form No. 2 under his chamber door, notifying him to leave Denver at or
before 11.50 the night of the 14th.

Some late bird of a reporter stole one of my placards, then hunted the
town over and found the other one, and stole that. In this manner he
accomplished what the profession call a "scoop"--that is, he got a
valuable item, and saw to it that no other paper got it. And so his
paper--the principal one in the town--had it in glaring type on the
editorial page in the morning, followed by a Vesuvian opinion of our
wretch a column long, which wound up by adding a thousand dollars to our
reward on the paper's account! The journals out here know how to do the
noble thing--when there's business in it.

At breakfast I occupied my usual seat--selected because it afforded a
view of papa Fuller's face, and was near enough for me to hear the talk
that went on at his table. Seventy-five or a hundred people were in the
room, and all discussing that item, and saying they hoped the seeker
would find that rascal and remove the pollution of his presence from the
town--with a rail, or a bullet, or something.

When Fuller came in he had the Notice to Leave--folded up--in one hand,
and the newspaper in the other; and it gave me more than half a pang to
see him. His cheerfulness was all gone, and he looked old and pinched
and ashy. And then--only think of the things he had to listen to!
Mamma, he heard his own unsuspecting friends describe him with epithets