Adventure Magazine Cover — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

766 of the mad rush would furnish the corre- spondents with enough matter to keep the news-pot constantly boiling. I assembled around me the shining lights of the Reno newspaper fraternity and put them on the pay-roll. | For weeks an average of at least one col- umn of exciting Rawhide stampede news was published on the front pages of the big Coast dailies. The publicity campaign went merrily on. I kept close watch on the char- acter of the news that was being sent out and was pleased in contemplating the fact that very little false coloring, if any, was resorted to. A _ boisterous mining-camp stampede, second only in intensity to the Klondike excitement of eleven years before, was in progress, and there was plenty of live news to chronicle almost every day. After returning from one of my trips to Rawhide I became alarmed on reading on the front page of the leading San Francisco newspapers a harrowing two-column story about the manner in which Ed. Hoffman, mine superintendent of the Rawhide Coali- tion, had been waylaid the day before on a dark desert road and robbed of $10,000 in gold which he was carrying to the mines for the purpose of discharging the pay-roll. I had just left Mr. Hoffman in Rawhide and he had not been waylaid. I sent for the man who was responsible for the story. “Say, Jim,” I said, “‘you’re crazy. There is a come-back to that yarn that will cost you your job as correspondent for your San Francisco paper. It is rough work. Cut it out!”’ ‘“‘Gee whillikins!”” he replied. ‘“‘How can I? Here’s an order for a two-column follow-up and I have already filed it.” “What did you say in your second story?” I inquired. “Well, I told how a posse, armed to the teeth, were chasing the robbers and ex- plained that they’re within three miles of Walker Lake in hot pursuit.” ‘““You’re a madman!”’ I protested. ‘‘ Kill those robbers and be quick; do it to-night so that you choke off the demand for more copy, or you’re a goner!”’ Next day the correspondent wired to his string of newspapers that the posse had chased the robbers into Walker Lake, where they were drowned. At the point in Walker Lake where the correspondent said the robbers had found Adventure a watery grave it was known to some Reno people that for three miles in both direc- tions the lake was shallow and that the deepest water in that vicinity was less than four feet. This caused some snickering in Reno. Still there was no come-back. The newspapers never learned of the deception. The correspondent had been canny enough in sending the story to keep the local corre- spondents of all other out-of-town news- papers thoroughly informed. They had sent out practically the same story, and therefore did not give the snap away. In the early days of the Rawhide boom a rumor reached the camp that Death Valley “Scotty,” the illustrious personage who had been press-agented from one end of the land to the other as the owner of a secret Golconda, was about to start a stampede into some new diggings. The news bureau decided to kill off opposition. Newspapers of the land were queried as follows: ‘*Scotty’s lair discovered in Death Valley. It is a cache containing a number of empty Wells-Fargo money-chests. Scotty has apparently been looting the loot of old- time stage robbers. How many words?” The newspapers just ate this one up. Column upon column was telegraphed from Nevada. The source of Scotty’s wealth being cleared up to the satisfaction of read- ers of the “‘yellows,’’? Scotty’s value as a mine promoter became seriously impaired. ian) WHEN I chided the Reno corre- “eed spondent for sending out the fake story regarding the robbery of Raw- hide Coalition’s mine manager, I recall that he argued he had made a blunder in one direction only. He said he should have seen to it that the mine manager was actu- ally robbed! That, he said, would have eliminated the danger of a come-back. Years ago in New York the public was startled by reading of an actress taking her bath in pure milk. A few weeks later news- paper readers were convulsed by stories of another star in the theatrical firmament performing her morning ablutions in a tub of champagne. “If you don’t believe it,”’ said the lady press-agent to a lady newspaper reporter who was sent to cover the story, “‘I will give you a chance to see the lady in the act.” This was done and, of course, the news- papers were convinced that it was no idle press-agent’s dream. Of course, neither of C© MICLOOKS C©