wasn't he just made news and sent that along.

The first word of his death had come in his own letter, brought across
on a filibustering steamer and wired on from Jacksonville. It told, with
close attention to detail--something he had learned since he left
me--how he had strayed away from the little band of insurgents with
which he had been out scouting and had blundered into the Spanish lines.
He had been promptly made a prisoner, and, despite his papers proving
his American citizenship, and the nature of his job, and the red cross
on his sleeve, he had been tried by drumhead court martial and sentenced
to be shot at dawn. All this he had written out, and then, that his
account might be complete, he had gone on and imagined his own
execution. This was written in a sort of pigeon, or perhaps you would
call it black Spanish, English, and let on to be the work of the
eyewitness to whom Simpkins had confided his letter. He had been the
sentry over the prisoner, and for a small bribe in hand and the promise
of a larger one from the paper, he had turned his back on Simpkins while
he wrote out the story, and afterward had deserted and carried it to the
Cuban lines.

The account ended: "Then, as the order to fire was given by the
lieutenant, Senor Simpkins raised his eyes toward Heaven and cried: 'I
protest in the name of my American citizenship!'" At the end of the
letter, and not intended for publication, was scrawled: "This is a bully
scoop for you, boys, but it's pretty tough on me. Good-by. Simpkins."

The managing editor dashed a tear from his eye when he read this to me,
and gulped a little as he said: "I can't help it; he was such a d----d
thoughtful boy. Why, he even remembered to inclose descriptions for the
pictures!"

Simpkins' last story covered the whole of the front page and three
columns of the second, and it just naturally sold cords of papers. His
editor demanded that the State Department take it up, though the
Spaniards denied the execution or any previous knowledge of any such
person as this Senor Simpkins. That made another page in the paper, of
course, and then they got up a memorial service, which was good for
three columns. One of those fellows that you can find in every office,
who goes around and makes the boys give up their lunch money to buy
flowers for the deceased aunt of the cellar boss' wife, managed to
collect twenty dollars among our clerks, and they sent a floral
notebook, with "Gone to P