accomplishment of a great work, even though there was ever before
Him the consciousness that at the end must come the great
sacrifice.

In 1899 he decided to launch out into the wider field, which
journalistic work in the East offered, and in the summer of that
year he came to New York. Many were the predictions of brother
reporters and friends that he would starve in the great city. It
was a struggle. He knew no one, had letters to no one, but that
was rather as he wished it than otherwise. He liked to test his
own fitness. It meant risk, but he knew his own capabilities and
believed in his own resourcefulness. He had thoroughly convinced
himself that the men who achieve are those who do what other men
are afraid to do. The difficulty would be to get an opening. That
done, he had no fear of what would follow.

He began his quest with a capital of less than five dollars. There
were many disappointments, much weariness, and a long fast which
came near to persuading him that his friends' predictions were
perhaps about to be fulfilled. _But he got his opening._

Staggering with weakness, he had lived for two days in momentary
dread of arrest for drunkenness. Then just when it seemed that he
could go no farther, a former acquaintance from the West, of whose
presence in the city he was aware, met him. Among the first
questions was: "Do you need money?" and forthwith a generous
fifteen dollars was placed in his hand. That day one of his
special stories was accepted, and only a few days later he was
taken on the staff of the _Daily News_, where soon the best
assignments of the paper were given him.