wrote you Comrade Ritchie has killed a man in Colorado. I understand
that the comrade was playing a poker game, and the man sat into the game
and used such language that Comrade Ritchie had to shoot. Comrade Webb
has killed two men in Beaver, Arizona. Comrade Webb is in the Forest
Service, and the killing was in the line of professional duty. I was out
at the penitentiary the other day and saw Comrade Gritto, who, you may
remember, was put there for shooting his sister-in-law [this was the
first information I had had as to the identity of the lady who was shot
in the eye]. Since he was in there Comrade Boyne has run off to old
Mexico with his (Gritto's) wife, and the people of Grant County think he
ought to be let out." Evidently the sporting instincts of the people of
Grant County had been roused, and they felt that, as Comrade Boyne had
had a fair start, the other comrade should be let out in order to see
what would happen.

The men of the regiment always enthusiastically helped me when I was
running for office. On one occasion Buck Taylor, of Texas, accompanied
me on a trip and made a speech for me. The crowd took to his speech from
the beginning and so did I, until the peroration, which ran as follows:
"My fellow-citizens, vote for my Colonel! vote for my Colonel! _and he
will lead you, as he led us, like sheep to the slaughter_!" This hardly
seemed a tribute to my military skill; but it delighted the crowd, and
as far as I could tell did me nothing but good.

On another tour, when I was running for Vice-President, a member of
the regiment who was along on the train got into a discussion with
a Populist editor who had expressed an unfavorable estimate of my
character, and in the course of the discussion shot the editor--not
fatally. We had to leave him to be tried, and as he had no money I
left him $150 to hire counsel--having borrowed the money from Senator