"You take me into this bank and introduce me and I will cash a check," he said.
"A check on what?" I asked.
"On my bank in Canajoharie, New York," he said. "I was born and brought up there, and they wouldn't let one of my checks go to protest. Besides, I can get back to 'Frisco and protect it by telegraph, if necessary, before it reaches Canajoharie."
We entered the bank. I introduced myself to the cashier as an Eastern newspaper man, and then introduced W. J. Arkell as the former publisher of Leslie's Weekly, Judge, and so on.
After a brief parley, Arkell exchanged his paper for real money to the amount of $50. On leaving the bank, I said:
"Now, Bill, come across! I'm flat broke, on the desert."
He handed me $15. I was satisfied, because he needed all of the $35 to get back to civilization.
"HUMAN INTEREST" VERSUS TECHNICAL MINING
After Arkell's departure for Tonopah I went to the office of the Goldfield News and asked for a job. I got it, at $10 a day. My first assignment was to interview an old miner named Tom Jaggers. I wrote what I considered a first-class human-interest story, and handed it to the owner and editor, "Jimmy" O'Brien. He thought it was fair writing, but not the sort of matter the Goldfield News wanted. It wanted technical mining stuff. Of course I didn't know a winze from a windlass, nor a shaft from a stope, and some of the weird yarns I handed in about mine developments certainly did make Mr. O'Brien jump sideways at times.
Within a week I was discharged for incompetency.