will have been finished and I am not ashamed to compare results with the best of them.

Willie Reed quits us on the 15 of the present month to enter the Laramie University. He has done fairly good work and we have not been compelled to pay him a very large salary. Our new man Paul Miller is doing splendid work and I will try and make arrangements with him for next year. He gives promise of making an extra good man with bones he is a big strapping fellow - ingenious and a good careful worker. I am paying him $30 per month and board at present but if he will consent to join us next season I will give him $35 per month.

I was compelled to pay $7.50 per ton to get the freight hauled to Medicine Bow. I looked around quite a good deal to see if I could do better than this but I could not. If we had not had a "Jim Crow" outfit we could have easily hauled our own freight. A good wagon and team would just about have paid for themselves on this one item to say nothing of the hauling of our lumber and the additional work in the quarry of which we would have had the full benefit.

I have forwarded the skins you left behind by express and they should have reached there by the time this letter arrives. I will not forget the sage brush which you wished me to ship in the car.

The work is fast drawing to a close and I will try and leave everything in first class shape for next year.

Hoping that you are now quite out of danger and that your recovery is rapid

I remain Very Sincerely Yours,

J. L. Wortman