When the speech-making was getting dangerously close to the vice-president’s turn, I slipped out. Motivated by strictly personal interest, Mr. Harvey followed. And though I did, later, get away with the acknowledged best write-up of the outing, I couldn’t have said one word in that meeting, with the Pike’s Peak Press Club in attendance, for all of Cheyenne mountain, with the famous Seven Falls and the gravel slide thrown in—and THE Girl knew this. Also, as it turned out, my girl carried off the acknowledged speech-making honors—following some very fuzzy ones. I never could understand why relatively smart people would insist on pushing the ill-equipped fellow out into the open. When the call came Major J. F. Clough, of the Sabetha Republican, president elect—the old piker had just delegated another to do his talking—said, “we must hear from the vice-president; someone please fetch him back in.” The Major, who, incidentally, in partnership with Theodore J. Wolfley, established the Wetmore Spectator, in 1882, and therefore was a sort of godfather to my paper, looked over to where THE Girl was seated, with Mrs. Hyde and other women including his own daughter, Miss Bay. Then THE Girl raised her 118 pounds up to her full 5-6 height, in her scuffed shoes, saying, mirthfully, “He has gone out with Mr. Hyde. You’ll not see HIM again tonight.” The applause, started by the ladies—all of whom had scuffed shoes, and instantly taken up by the men, all of whom had gotten from their women a neat and not a gentle telling off—was enough to frighten THE Girl. The shine having already gotten back into her eyes, THE Girl, in associating me as of the moment with Mr. Harvey, was actually trying to cover up for me for running out on them. But the inference, nevertheless, pointed toward Oldtown. There were some in the party who were not bona fide editors—that had worked transportation through the newspapers. A Wetmore shoe merchant had made a deal with a county paper. The outing was a courtesy gesture of the railroad—principally the Rock Island.