subterranean streams threatened constantly to destroy. Every day, in
rubber coat and hip-boots, for five years, he worked at it, surmounting
one obstacle after another, and finished a winner, having carried through
one of the hardest underground jobs ever attempted.

While he was doing this he built the Jerome Park Reservoir--so as to keep
himself busy, he said.

When he put in a bid five million dollars lower than his next competitor
for the building of the New York Subway there was at first some hitch over
the seven-million-dollar security demanded, and his rival was asked if he
expected to get the contract by default.

"No," he said, "McDonald has that contract and he'll keep it. He never
lets go."

A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

Interesting Story of a Young Tenderfoot
Who Won Fortune, Fame, and Political
Honors in the West.

Edward O. Wolcott, the late Senator from Colorado, was one of the young
Eastern men who set out, shortly after the Civil War, to explore the
resources of the West.

For a time the struggle to make a living was a difficult one; but, quick
to realize the low value that the pioneers placed upon Puritan ancestry
and a collegiate education, he became successively a bank clerk, ticket
seller for a theatrical company, and railroad employee, until he drifted
to the small mining town of Georgetown, in the heart of the Colorado
Rockies. There, at last, the reputation of "having an education" proved
useful. The position of schoolmaster was offered to Mr. Wolcott and was
accepted.

Gradually the city of Denver began to hear of the schoolmaster of
Georgetown. His name was encountered frequently in the records as the
possessor of various mining interests--oftentimes deeded to him for legal
services in lieu of money consideration. Everything he touched seemed to
pan out rich; and this brought him followers as adventurous as himself and
ready to back his judgment with cash.

Finally, in 1890, two prospectors having exhausted their grubstake were
returning wearily over the hills of Creede, when during a brief halt one
of their burros wandered off to prospect for himself. After a long search,
one of the prospectors found the animal standing in front of a large
boulder. In telling the story afterward, the prospector never could tell
whether the seemingly hypnotized gaze of the burro or something peculiar
in the appearance of the outcrop attracted his attention; but he recalled
with little difficulty th