The first word of his death had come in his own letter, brought across on a filibustering steamer and wired on from Jacksonville. It told, with close attention to detail--something he had learned since he left me--how he had strayed away from the little band of insurgents with which he had been out scouting and had blundered into the Spanish lines. He had been promptly made a prisoner, and, despite his papers proving his American citizenship, and the nature of his job, and the red cross on his sleeve, he had been tried by drumhead court martial and sentenced to be shot at dawn. All this he had written out, and then, that his account might be complete, he had gone on and imagined his own execution. This was written in a sort of pigeon, or perhaps you would call it black Spanish, English, and let on to be the work of the eyewitness to whom Simpkins had confided his letter. He had been the sentry over the prisoner, and for a small bribe in hand and the promise of a larger one from the paper, he had turned his back on Simpkins while he wrote out the story, and afterward had deserted and carried it to the Cuban lines. The account ended: "Then, as the order to fire was given by the lieutenant, Señor Simpkins raised his eyes toward Heaven and cried: 'I protest in the name of my American citizenship!'" At the end of the letter, and not intended for publication, was scrawled: "This is a bully scoop for you, boys, but it's pretty tough on me. Good-by. Simpkins." The managing editor dashed a tear from his eye when he read this to me, and gulped a little as he said: "I can't help it; he was such a d----d thoughtful boy. Why, he even remembered to inclose descriptions for the pictures!" Simpkins' last story covered the whole of the front page and three columns of the second, and it just naturally sold cords of papers. His editor demanded that the State Department take it up, though the Spaniards denied the execution or any previous knowledge of any such person as this Señor Simpkins. That made another page in the paper, of course, and then they got up a memorial service, which was good for three columns. One of those fellows that you can find in every office, who goes around and makes the boys give up their lunch money to buy flowers for the deceased aunt of the cellar boss' wife, managed to collect twenty dollars among our clerks, and they sent a floral notebook, with "Gone to Press," done in blue immortelles on the cover, as their "tribute." I put on a plug hat and attended the service out of respect for his father. But I had hardly got back to the office before I received a wire from Jamaica, reading: "Cable your correspondent here let me have hundred. Notify father all hunk. Keep it dark from others. Simpkins."