To borrow money under that rate you needed the health of a bear, a cataract of energy, a colossal mind, unlimited self-respect, boundless self-confidence, all impregnated with an iron honesty. That kind of interest makes me feel like the investor, who bought some unseen land from an honest real estate man, and, when he went to look at his property he found it submerged in water. The real estate man told him it could be irrigated, but he had no idea it was susceptible of such profuse moisture. After he gazed at it a while he said “Instead of buying this land by the acre I should have bought it by the quart.” He probably has an unrecorded deed, I have the paid note in my possession, I feel proud I got it paid; but my pride halted suddenly when I got it paid and in all these years it hasn’t advanced much for men who can take a nickle and make it into a dollar so all fired quick. Some time I’ll frame that note with a glass on both sides of it. Coming back to the early events. I was born beneath the shadows of the Rocky Mountains where the placid and sleepy Platte wound leisurely through the broad meadows and sleeping undeveloped valleys and had abundance of God’s elixir before the day of the great reclamation projects that sapped its mountain waters. Because I mention the Platte here, don’t get me mixed with that other fellow that has made the Platte famous and was until recently holding a cabinet position on an underpaid salary, he’s no relation of mine and I never knew him until he ran for President. He did the opposite from what I did and took that one slim chance, made three strikes and fanned; I’m glad I let it alone. When I was six years old and my parents still said what I should do they took Horace Greeley’s advice and went a hundred and six miles farther west. At their destination there was no buildings except the section house, depot and a little building that sheltered the hand car. The entire population was not over a baker’s dozen. I don’t believe there was a quieter place on God’s footstool. One good thing about those days was the taxes; I think a week’s compensation on the railroad would pay the taxes, County, State and Municipal from 1887 to 1890. How we have progressed in taxes since then! Especially Colorado. In this little dreary place where I had no associations to lead me astray I took account of my surroundings. I was away out there on the barren plains where the grass curled and burned under the blazing sun, where foliage was scant, where the lonely cactus and prickly pear awaited the step of man to imbed itself and cause more pain, no trees or flowers to whisper words of encouragement, no cheerful forest or shady dells, nothing at all to cause the deeper emotions of a queer nature to assert themselves. Nothing but the broad miraged prairie stretching as far as the eye could see.