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Show THE LATE ALF DOTEN. I A Nevada dispatch, last Sunday, announced jfl that on the previous Thursday, Alf Doten had H been found dead in his room tt a Carson City jfl hotel. He was in his seventy-fifth year, a '49 B Argonaut. For more than half a century he was H a toiler on this coast. He was of superb eastern fl stock a born thoroughbred, so, naturally, when H he was prosperous he was genial, kind and true; H when misfortune came he was brave enough to fl meet it without plaint and to ilnd in hard work jfl a palliative for every wound made by the javelins jfl the unkind Fate hurled at him. He wore his bat- H tered harness to the last, and like a wounded H lion, died alone in his lair. He and the writer H of this formed a friendship in tle long ago which H never knew a chill, and the writing of this is H but complying with a request from him, m.de when H the sky of his life had not one cloud, that if he H was first called it should be said of him that he H was an honest man who loved his friends, who H tried to have no enemies, who never wronged H man or woman, who tried to do right as God H gave him to see the right, who loved his life H here, but who had courage enough to meet any H fate in store for him; that as he came to this H world without knowledge and hd found so much jfl of happiness, when the time came for him to jfl pass to another undiscovered world, he would fl go without fear, trusting that more happiness H might be in store for him, beyond the folding H doors -Vhich hide from our eyes the Beyond. H He was a typical Argonaut. The best was not H too good for' him, but the woist was not worth jfl complaining about. He was nrst a miner, but in H his cabin was given to rest himself when the jfl day's work was done by putting his restless H thoughts on paper, and so, nat'u-ally, gravitated JH into a printing office and at last became proprietor H and editor of the Gold Hill (Nev.) News. When H the Belcher and Crown Point bonanza was found H he became very prosperous, when a little later jfl the great C. & C. bonanza was uncovered and H explored he became very wealthy. H He might have retired then comfortable for fl life, but when a stock jumped from 50 cents to $1,800 within four months as did the Crown fl Point, or from $3.00 to $900.00 within eighteen fl months as did Con. Virginia, was it not natural fl to invest in them? And when they began to slump what was more natural then to call it a fl temporary depression and to buy more? H ' So when the bottom finally fell out the money H was gone, and as everyone was in the same boat, H people could not pay for the paper and so not fl only was the surplus exhausted but the means fl to make more had been taken away. But to a Jfl hopeful nature it was impossible to believe that the great Comstock had no more bonanzas. There had been yoars of depression before, but they fl did not count when measured by the fruition that came between 18C9 and 1178 and so it was fl natural not only to hold on but to go a little in H debt. Then came the 'final stage by 'hard word to live and to pay the debts. H So for twenty years Doten has been working us a reporter and correspondent, giving up one by one the hopes of the long ago and following the path of duty that every year presented more rocks and thorns to his weary feet, until, finally, his work being finished, he f"ll asleep. It is usual to speak words of sorrow over the, dead, but they should not be spoken over the grave of Alf-Doten, It is right to recall his genial nature, his high thoughts, his sterling work, his innumerable innum-erable good deeds, but for him now there should be congratulations only that the final rest has come to him. The whole West is sanctified with graves like v his, the graves of men who asked for nothing but the ability to work, who nursed no thoughts but kindly ones, who loved their country and their fellow men, and who have gone heiice with this truth to plead for them in the higher final court, that never in their lives did thoy do a wiong or dishonorable act and that thev were true to their tiust in life as God gave them to see the right. ' |