CHAPTER XLIII.

However, as I grew better acquainted with the business and learned the run of the sources of information I ceased to require the aid of fancy to any large extent, and became able to fill my columns without diverging noticeably from the domain of fact.

I struck up friendships with the reporters of the other journals, and we swapped “regulars” with each other and thus economized work.  “Regulars” are permanent sources of news, like courts, bullion returns, “clean-ups” at the quartz mills, and inquests.  Inasmuch as everybody went armed, we had an inquest about every day, and so this department was naturally set down among the “regulars.”  We had lively papers in those days.  My great competitor among the reporters was Boggs of the Union.  He was an excellent reporter.  Once in three or four months he would get a little intoxicated, but as a general thing he was a wary and cautious drinker although always ready to tamper a little with the enemy.  He had the advantage of me in one thing; he could get the monthly public school report and I could not, because the principal hated the Enterprise.  One snowy night when the report was due, I started out sadly wondering how I was going to get it.  Presently, a few steps up the almost deserted street I stumbled on Boggs and asked him where he was going.

“After the school report.”

“I’ll go along with you.”

“No, sir.  I’ll excuse you.”

“Just as you say.”

A saloon-keeper’s boy passed by with a steaming pitcher of hot punch, and Boggs snuffed the fragrance gratefully.  He gazed fondly after the boy and saw him start up the Enterprise stairs.  I said: 

“I wish you could help me get that school business, but since you can’t, I must run up to the Union office and see if I can get them to let me have a proof of it after they have set it up, though I don’t begin to suppose they will.  Good night.”

“Hold on a minute.  I don’t mind getting the report and sitting around with the boys a little, while you copy it, if you’re willing to drop down to the principal’s with me.”

“Now you talk like a rational being.  Come along.”

We plowed a couple of blocks through the snow, got the report and returned to our office.  It was a short document and soon copied.  Meantime Boggs helped himself to the punch.  I gave the manuscript back to him and we started out to get an inquest, for we heard pistol shots near by.  We got the particulars with little loss of time, for it was only an inferior sort of bar-room murder, and of little interest to the public, and then we separated.  Away at three o’clock in the morning, when we had gone to press and were having a relaxing concert as usual —­for some of the printers were good singers and others good performers on the guitar and on that atrocity the accordion—­the proprietor of the Union strode in and desired to know if anybody