The gravel slide is—or was—about three hundred feet downslope from the grave, along the mountain at a left turn, where all join hands, stick feet in the gravel, stand erect, pulling first one foot up and then the other to avoid being swamped, while the whole mass slips away to the canyon several hundred feet below. And there you were—right at the trail, with the laborious climb down the seven flights of steps avoided.
The mutilation of those new shoes at a time like that was truly a disconcerting thing to befall the “perfect 34” girl—we had ‘em then—who had only the day before been declared the neatest dressed and most attractive woman in the editorial party. She had form, poise, personality—and a wonderfully good dressmaker. However, before the day was done, she evened the score—and gloried in it.
The Association members held their annual meeting in the parlors of the Alamo Hotel that evening, and through the courtesy of my good friend, Harvey Hyde, of the Holton Signal, I was nominated and elected vice-president. This gesture cost me. Any one of the editorial party could have testified that Mr. Harvey had joyously climbed down off the “water wagon” on his first trip to Oldtown—Colorado City — halfway between Colorado Springs and Manitou. That I was paying for the whisky without participating in the drinking thereof, I cannot deny. But if I should say that he never gave me as much as a smell of the stuff, I would not be telling the truth. By pre-arrangement, Harvey’s wife was sharing her room with my girl, and I wars sharing my room with Harvey—and there was nothing I could do about it. A bargain was a bargain—and neither of us had the faintest notion of welshing.
When the speech-making was getting dangerously close to the vice-president’s turn, I slipped out. Motivated by strictly personal interest, Mr. Harvey followed. And though I did, later, get away with the acknowledged best write-up of the outing, I couldn’t have said one word in that meeting, with the Pike’s Peak Press Club in attendance, for all of Cheyenne mountain, with the famous Seven Falls and the gravel slide thrown in—and THE Girl knew this.
Also, as it turned out, my girl carried off the acknowledged speech-making honors—following some very fuzzy ones. I never could understand why relatively smart people would insist on pushing the ill-equipped fellow out into the open. When the call came Major J. F. Clough, of the Sabetha Republican, president elect—the old piker had just delegated another to do his talking—said, “we must hear from the vice-president; someone please fetch him back in.”
The Major, who, incidentally, in partnership with Theodore J. Wolfley, established the Wetmore Spectator, in 1882, and therefore was a sort of godfather to my paper, looked over to where THE Girl was seated, with Mrs. Hyde and other women including his own daughter, Miss Bay. Then THE Girl raised her 118 pounds up to her full 5-6 height, in her scuffed shoes, saying, mirthfully, “He has gone out with Mr. Hyde. You’ll not see HIM again tonight.”
The applause, started by the ladies—all of whom had scuffed shoes, and instantly taken up by the men, all of whom had gotten from their women a neat and not a gentle telling off—was enough to frighten THE Girl. The shine having already gotten back into her eyes, THE Girl, in associating me as of the moment with Mr. Harvey, was actually trying to cover up for me for running out on them. But the inference, nevertheless, pointed toward Oldtown.
There were some in the party who were not bona fide editors—that had worked transportation through the newspapers. A Wetmore shoe merchant had made a deal with a county paper. The outing was a courtesy gesture of the railroad—principally the Rock Island.
Might say here that the next year—1892—the Association arranged with the Union Pacific for transportation to Salt Lake City, concluding the outing again at Colorado Springs—and it was almost a complete sell-out on the part of the newspapers. We were short ticketed to Grand Island, there to meet the through train carrying a Company representative who would ask us some questions about our papers, and supply us with passes for the round trip. When he came to me, after working pretty well through the cars carrying the “editors,” he laughed and said, “You are the second newspaperman I have found, so far.” I told him he should find at least one more who knew the password. My partner had been coached. Though not present himself, Ewing Herbert, of the Hiawatha World, was elected president. And though a mighty good newspaperman, he did not seem to have’ influence with the railroads. Our Association never got another complimentary outing. But, personally, I remained in good standing with the railroads, and got everything asked for—all told about 250,000 miles of free travel. In addition THE Girl—Miss Myrtle Mercer—had a Missouri Pacific pass, and Moulton DeForest, our proofreader, had one for nearly ten years. Newspapers do not get them so easily now—if at all.
Also, there were five girls in the Colorado Springs editorial party. The secretary, Clyde McManigal, of the Horton Commercial, had written the single editors telling them to bring their girls along—that the Association had arranged to have a chaperon look after them. The chaperon proved to be a grass widow, a newspaper owner in a nearby town—and right off she found herself a man. The fact that he was a married man, a shoe merchant from my home town, by the way, made no difference—not until they got home.