"I am glad to know that things are going toward the good with you. Personally, I never expect to be a seven-figure man again, and don't care to be. I prefer to look after my few thousands of steers, laying on four hundred pounds each per year, far from the madding crowd. You know Riley's man who said that the little town of Tailholt was good enough for him? Well, that expresses my view of the 'J-Up-and-Down' Ranch as a hermitage. It'll do quite well. But these Eastern interests of Mrs. Jim are just now menacing to life in any hermitage. She has specifically stated on two or three occasions lately that this is no place to bring up a family. Think of a rough-rider like me in the wilds of New York! I can see plenty of ways of amusing myself down there, but not such peaceful ways as putting on my six-shooters and going out after timber wolves or mountain lions, or our local representative of the clan of the Hon. Maverick Brander. The future lowers dark with the multitudinous mouths of avenues of prosperity!" This letter was a disappointment to Mr. Giddings. His special edition of the _Herald_ commemorative of the opening of our Auditorium must now be deprived of its James R. Elkins feature, so far as his being the guest of honor goes. But there will be Jim's photograph on the first page, and a half-tone reproduction of a picture of the wreck at the Elk Fork trestle. "It is a matter of the deepest regret," said the _Herald_ this morning, "that Mr. Elkins cannot be with us on this auspicious occasion. He was the head of that most remarkable group of men who laid the foundations of Lattimore's greatness. Only one of them, Mr. Barslow, still lives in Lattimore, where he has devoted his life, since the crash of many years ago, to the reorganization of the failed concerns, and especially the Grain Belt Trust Company, and to the salving of their properties in the interests of the creditors. His present prominence grows out of the signal skill and ability with which he has done this work; and he must prove a great factor in the city's future development, as he has been in its past. Mr. Hinckley, the third member of the syndicate, now far advanced in years, is living happily with his daughter and her husband. The fourth, Mr. Cornish, resides in Paris, where he is well known as a daring and successful financial operator. He, of all the syndicate, retired from the Lattimore enterprises rich.