I was talking the other day with a Laramie City man about Leadville, he said:

"In addition to the fact of Laramie money being now invested there, we have sent many good citizens there to build up homes and swell the boom of the young city. We also sent several there of whom we are not proud. We still hold them in loving remembrance. Sometimes we go through the motions of getting judgments against these men, and making transcripts with big seals on them, and sending to Leadville to be placed on the execution docket of Lake county.

"We also sent Edward Frodsham to Leadville. We intimated to him that life was very brief and that if he wanted to gather a little stake to leave his family perhaps he could do so faster in Leadville than anywhere else. So he went. He is there now. He at once won the notice of the public there and soon became the recipient of the most flattering attentions. A little band of American citizens one evening took him out on the plaza, or something of that kind, and hung him last fall.

"The maple turned to crimson and the sassafras to gold, and when the morning woke the song of the bunko-steerer and the robin, Mr. Frodsham was on his branch all right, but he couldn't seem to get in his work as a songster. There seemed to be a stricture in the glottis, and the diaphragm wouldn't buzz. The gorgeous dyes of the autumn sunrise seemed strangely at variance with the gen d'arm blue of Mr. Frodsham's countenance.

"His death calls to mind one sunny day in the midsummer of '78. It was one of those days when there is a lull in the struggle for existence, and the dreamy silence and hush of nature seem to be concurred in by a committee of the whole.

"It was one of those days when, in the language of the average magazine poet—

The flowers bloomed, the air was mild,

The little birds poured forth their lay,

And everything in nature smiled.

"But soon from out the silence, bursting upon the quiet air, came the sharp report of a pistol. Then another and another in rapid succession. People who were going to trade in that locality suddenly thought of other places of business where the same articles could be obtained cheaper. Men who were not afraid of danger in any form, went away because they didn't want to be called as witnesses on the inquest.

"The shooting went on for some time. It sounded like the battle'of the Wilderness. After a while it ceased. A large party of men went out to gather up the dead and arrange for a grand funeral. But the remains were not so dead as they ought to be. There were bullet holes to be sure, penetrating various parts of the combatants, but the funeral had to be postponed. The sidewalks were plowed up, signs were riddled and windows shattered, but Edward Frodsham got off with a bullet hole through the side. The doctor pronounced it a very close call, but not necessarily fatal. It was a terrible disappointment to every one. As a shooting match it was a depressing failure, and as a double funeral it was not deserving of mention.

"The city council told Frodsham that if he couldn't shoot better than that he might select some young growing town outside of Wyoming and grow up with it. He did so. He favored Colorado with his stirring, energetic presence.

"His grave grows green to-day on the sunny hill-side 'neath the bending willow, and the soft, sweet breath that is sighing through the pines and stirring the delicate ferns beside the glassy depth of the mountain stream, is singing his requiem. [Perhaps, however, I am rushing the season for Leadville a little; if so the last refrain after the word 'presence,' may be wrapped up in warm flannels and stored away till July.]"