The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-21

perience which he afterward invested il
glory.
For instance, in 1883. an off schoo
year. he became n Santa Fe train col
! lector. At different times his route lay
all the way from Kansas City to Albu-
! querque, and south to the Gulf of Mex
leo. Among his other duties was thai
| of train bouncer." He weighed little
1 more than 100 pounds then, but thai
didn't stand in the way of his success
as a bouncer The record of his grit
is still in the clogged supreme court Of
| Kansas, where damage suits against
the Santa Fe are awaiting the judg-
ment day
And among the greasers and cow
boys of New Mexico, Colorado and
western Kansas, there is myth to the
effect that the Santa Fe once put q
human marmot on its trains, who con-
! cealed death in his right hand and lin
! gering illness in his left.
After a peaceful year in the univer-
/ sity, Funston longed for something less
| monotonous than encounters with cow
boys, and sought to satisfy the lust in
/ his soul for excitement by going into
| the newspaper business.
He had never been in city news
paper Office. when by the force of sheer
/ audacity he struck Kansas City city
/ editor for place and got a probational
/ job. Luck brought him a beat which
/ the first day convinced the city editor
/ that Funston was phenomenal repor-
! ter. When a letter came from a man
( in Fort Smith to the newspaper office
asking the city editor to send him a
first-class man to take care of coun-
try daily, Funston went. He didn't
know any more about country daily
that he knew about the climate of
Mars, but he tackled it. When the
United States district court met at
Fort Smith, Funston started in to take
sides in a murder case, and Judge
Parker. the famous hanging judge.
who had sentenced over 100 murderers
to DEATH called Funston into his study
one evening, ostensibly to talk about
the case i'll question: The judge opened
the conversation by telling Mr. Fun
ston, in confidence, that journalism
wasn't his profession, and closed the in
cident by intimating that the climate
of Arkansas was very, very unhealthy
at that particular season. Not desiring
TO go to Jail for contempt. Funston got
out of town on a night train, and the
owner of the paper found a new man
the next morning. But Funston had
enough money saved up to go to school
another year. and so went back to the
university. At the end of the year he
took the civil service examination and
got place in the agricultural depart
ment at Washington, and was sent to
Montana and the Dakotas, making a
botanical collection of grasses. After
that he joined the government expedi-
ton that made the first official survey
of Death valley, the famous California
death trap.
The rigors of this undertaking may
be inferred from the fact that Fun
ston. the youngest member of the ex-
petition, is the only one alive and sane
today After the work in Death VAL
ley was completed Funston made one
of the party of five that effected the
first back door, entrance into Yose-
mite valley down the sheer sides of
the mountains.
In the winter of 1872 his main
work began when the government sent
him To Alaska to make a botaical
survey of certain parts of the coast.