"Paper? Rocky Mountain News! Fresh off the press! Buy a paper, Mister? Tell you all about the latest strikes, and where to go."
He was a very slim, tall young man whose trousers were finished off below the knees with gunny sacking, in order to cover his long legs.
"Yes. Let me have one," responded Harry. And added, to Terry, while handing out a dime: "That'll give us the quickest information."
The tall slim young man was turning the dime over and over in his palm.
"No good," he said. "Nothing less than a quarter goes, out here."
"But they told us picks and spades are fifteen cents."
"In trade, maybe. But these papers are a quarter, Mister. Two bits. That's the smallest change in camp. Dust or coin."
"Hum!" grunted Harry, producing a quarter. He scratched his nose as he glanced at the paper. "At this rate we'll soon be busted."
The paper was entitled "Rocky Mountain News, Cherry Creek, K. T."—the initials standing, of course, for Kansas Territory. W. N. Byers was proprietor. It was printed on a coarse brownish paper—seemed to be full of items about gold being brought in from "gulches"—a number of advertisements and announcements—had the convention call—
"We'll read it in camp," quoth Harry. "Gwan, Duke! Jenny! Haw!"