I don’t believe it. There are times in life—in some lives, at least—when nothing is more desirable than death.

XIII.

Creede, Colo., May 13, 1892.

My Dear Fitz:—You ask me how the Chronicle is doing. It is doing better than the editor. I have been reducing expenses on every hand, but since the state land sale, the boom has collapsed, so that from one hundred dollars a week, we have got up to where we lose three hundred a week, with a good prospect for an increase. The responsibility has grown so great, that I begin to feel like a Kansas farm, struggling to bear up under a second mortgage.

I have been elected assistant superintendent of the Sunday-school, umpired a prize-fight, been time-keeper at a ball game, have been elected to the common council from the Bad Lands by an overwhelming vote, but I have received no salary as editor of the Chronicle.

Tabor has written another note, and perpetrated some more poetry:

“Among these rose-bejeweled hills

Where bloom the fairest flowers

Where the echo from the mines and mills

This little vale with music fills,