"So you're a newspaper feller," remarked the man at length. "That's damn funny. But I guess it's so if you say so. You see," he added, "Frank Vine he said you was a deputy-sheriff on the lookout for a horse-thief." Packard felt his hair rise under his hat. "Where was you going last night when you started to go out?" "To the telegraph-office." "I made up my mind you was going to telegraph." "I was just going to mail a letter." "Well, if you'd gone I'd have killed you." Packard gasped a little. Frank Vine was a joker with a vengeance. They rode on, talking of lighter matters.[4] [Footnote 4: A year later, Packard, as Chief of Police, officiated at what was euphemistically known as a "necktie party" at which his companion of that ride was the guest of honor.] Packard had come to the Bad Lands with the idea of spending the winter in the open, hunting, but he was a newspaper man from top to toe and in the back of his mind there was a notion that it would be a good deal of a lark, and possibly a not unprofitable venture, to start a weekly newspaper in the Marquis de Mores's budding metropolis. He had, at the tender age of thirteen, been managing editor of a country newspaper, owned by his father, and ever since had been drawn again and again back into the "game" by that lure which few men who yield to it are ever after able to resist. He broached the matter to the Marquis. That gentleman was patronizing, but agreed that a special organ might prove of value to his Company. He offered to finance the undertaking. Packard remarked that evidently the Marquis did not understand. If he started a paper it would be an organ for nobody. He intended to finance it himself and run it to please himself. All he wanted was a building. The Marquis, a little miffed, agreed to rent him a building north of his general store in return for a weekly advertisement for the Company. Packard ordered his type and his presses and betook himself to the solitude of the wintry buttes to think of a name for his paper. His battle was half won when he came back with the name of _The Bad Lands Cowboy_. His first issue came out early in February, 1884. It was greeted with interest even by so mighty a contemporary as the New York _Herald_. [Illustration: Marquis de Mores.] We hail with pleasure the birth of a new Dakota paper, _The Bad Lands Cowboy_ [runs the note of welcome]. The _Cowboy_ is really a neat little journal, with lots to read in it, and the American press has every reason to be proud of its new baby. We are quite sure it will live to be a credit to the family. The _Cowboy_ evidently means business. It says in the introductory notice to its first number that it intends to be the leading cattle paper of the Northwest, and adds that it is not published for fun, but for $2 a year.