Soon after his bank was started, at the age of fifty, Cruse decided that he had enough capital to support a wife. Miss Margaret Carter, sister of the later United States Senator Carter, became Mrs. Cruse. The wedding, in 1886, was the greatest social event in the history of Montana’s capital. It was a celebration for all the population. Cruse arranged for an open house and free drinks with every saloon in Helena. Tradition has it that the whole male population of the town got drunk at the bridegroom’s expense, and it took a week to sober the people into a working condition. The jamboree was the greatest ever pulled off in the treasure State; no one attempted to rival the score. The joys of wedded life were of short duration, however. Mrs. Cruse died within a year, leaving a baby daughter, on which the father lavished his affections and means. What Count John A. Creighton was to Omaha, Thomas Cruse was to Helena. Every public enterprise, every promising industry, drew his support; benevolent and charitable movements commanded assistance from his purse. He was the chief contributor to the building of the Catholic Cathedral of Helena, which was dedicated on Christmas Day, the Methodist Hospital, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and the Young Women’s Christian Association shared in his bounty, and his liberality in supporting the local club kept Helena on the baseball map. The career of Mr. Cruse was linked in many ways with the active lives of several former Omaha residents. A year or two before Cruse struck Alder Gulch, Patrick Gurnett, Mrs. Gurnett, and three young children started from Omaha with a bull team in a caravan which occupied six months in covering the distance to Virginia City, Mont. Cruse and the Gurnetts probably became acquainted there. In subsequent years, when the Gurnetts became ranchers in the Missoula valley, south of Helena, Cruse’s poverty as a prospector was frequently relieved by the food reserves of the Gurnett homestead. Frank J. Lange, son of an Omaha family of pioneer grocers, is the active manager of Cruse’s Savings Bank, and has been confidential associate and adviser of the millionaire for years past. Another man, Harry Cotter, married Cruse’s daughter, Mary, who died a year ago last November. Cruse and Cotter did not pull together, and the death of the daughter widened the breach, which continued to the gold miner’s end. Put Nickle in Slot, Get Paper Raincoat. Have you ever arrived in your old home town in a pelting rainstorm, all dolled up in your Sunday best, and been compelled to pass up a quarter to the local bus man or linger around the depot until some good Samaritan with an umbrella is kind enough to escort you to the abode of your family or friends?