“Ho-o-o! Git a extree! Git a extree! All about the mistake in the winner of Number One! Git a extree! Ho-o-o-o!”
People caught their breaths and stopped to lean and listen. Mistake in the winner of Number One? What was that? The parched voice was plain enough in that statement:
“Mistake in the winner of Number One.”
A crowd hundreds deep quickly surrounded the vender of extras, and another crowd assembled in front of the office, where Editor Mong stood with a pile of papers at his hand, changing them into money almost as fast as that miracle is performed by the presses of the United States Treasury. 109
Walker and William Bentley bored through the throng and bought a paper. Standing under the light at a saloon door, they read the exciting news. Editor Mong had cleared a place for it, without regard to the beginning or the ending of anything else on the page, in the form which had carried his last extra of the day. There the announcement stood in bold type, two columns wide, under an exclamatory
EXTRA!
William Bentley read aloud:
Owing to a mistake in transmitting the news by telephone, the name of the winner of Claim Number One in today’s land-drawing at Meander was omitted. The list of winners published heretofore in The Chieftain is correct, with the single exception that each of them moves along one number. Number One, as announced, becomes Number Two, and so on down the list.
The editor regrets this error, which was due entirely to the excitement and confusion in the office at Meander, and takes this earliest opportunity of rectifying it.
The editor also desires to announce that The Chieftain will appear no longer as a daily paper. Beginning with next Monday it will be issued as a four-page, five-column weekly, containing all the state, national, and foreign news. Price three dollars a year in advance. The editor thanks you for your loyal support and patronage.