e 'Herald,' the news editor
chanced to be out. Bat crossed to the 'Independent's' office. It
lacked but half an hour of the time to lock up the press, and on
condition that the story should be "a scoop," Bat was sent out to the
composing room to dictate straight to the printer, standing over the
linotype machine.

What was "the story" that he dictated? If you know where to look, you
can see its prototype seven times a week. It was written jocularly;
oh, it was exceedingly funny with all sorts of veiled references to
naughtiness that couldn't be printed, pretty naughtiness, you
understand, the kind you wink at, as was to be expected from a little
beauty, a brunette, chic, etc. (I forget how many French words Bat
tucked in: he had to look 'em up in the French-English appendix to
Webster's Dictionary as the proof came off the galley), the well known
daughter of the richest sheep rancher in the Valley. "The story" was
headed: "Pretty Scandal in Peaceful Valley." Bat played "the human
interest" feature for all it was worth; also the trick of suspended
interest. It began by informing the public that a pretty scandal was
disturbing a certain Valley not a hundred miles from the Rim Rocks, the
essential details of which could not be given, would probably _never_
be printed, for obvious reasons. Then followed a solid paragraph of
nonsense verse inserted as prose; about a Ranger-man, Ranger-man,
running away, 'Cause pa-pah, dear pa-pah comes home for to-day; But his
Lincoln green coatie the Ranger forgot; And pa-pah, dear pa-pah came
home raging hot; The Ranger-man, Ranger-man was still on the run, For
pa-pah, dear pa-pah was out with a gun, He'd heaved up his war club and
jangled his spear, And swore by my halidom what doth that coat here,
etc., etc. Any school boy could have trolled off yards of the same
drivelling cleverness; and Eleanor's innocent telephone call was, of
course, lugged in.

There followed a garbled account of poor Calamity's errant days among
the miners of the Black Hills. The account had no reference to her
heroism in the early mining days, when she roved in man's attire over
the hills to rescue wounded miners from the Sioux. It set forth only
her blazoning sins; evidently on the assumption that carrion is
preferable to meat. And then tucked ingeniously into this account was
veiled mention of a rich sheepman, too well known to need naming, who
was evidently making reparation for the errors of hi