n Pennsylvania,
and for whom he had camped out many a night to guard the sheep from
wolves. He was nearly twenty-one; and, although tall and gawky, with
tow-colored hair, a pale face and whining voice, he resolved to seek
his fortune in New York City. Slinging his bundle of clothes on a stick
over his shoulder, he walked sixty miles through the woods to Buffalo,
rode on a canal boat to Albany, descended the Hudson in a barge, and
reached New York, just as the sun was rising, August 18, 1831.

For days Horace wandered up and down the streets, going into scores of
buildings and asking if they wanted "a hand;" but "no" was the
invariable reply. His quaint appearance led many to think he was an
escaped apprentice. One Sunday at his boarding-place he heard that
printers were wanted at "West's Printing-office." He was at the door at
five o'clock Monday morning, and asked the foreman for a job at seven.
The latter had no idea that the country greenhorn could set type for the
Polyglot Testament on which help was needed, but said: "Fix up a case
for him and we'll see if he _can_ do anything." When the proprietor came
in, he objected to the newcomer and told the foreman to let him go when
his first day's work was done. That night Horace showed a proof of the
largest and most correct day's work that had then been done. In ten
years Horace was a partner in a small printing-office. He founded the
_New Yorker_, the best weekly paper in the United States, but it was not
profitable. When Harrison was nominated for President in 1840, Greeley
started _The Log Cabin_, which reached the then fabulous circulation of
ninety thousand. But on this paper at a penny a copy, he made no money.
His next venture was the New York _Tribune_, price one cent. To start it
he borrowed a thousand dollars and printed five thousand copies of the
first number. It was difficult to give them all away. He began with six
hundred subscribers, and increased the list to eleven thousand in six
weeks. The demand for the _Tribune_ grew faster than new machinery could
be obtained to print it. It was a paper whose editor always tried to be
_right_.

At the World's Fair in New York in 1853 President Pierce might have been
seen watching a young man exhibiting a patent rat trap. He was attracted
by the enthusiasm and diligence of the young man, but never dreamed that
he would become one of the richest men in the world. It seemed like
small business for Jay Gould to be exhi