It cost the New York Herald two thousand dollars, but the New York Herald published the first intelligence.
Gideon Spilett was tall.

He was rather more than forty years of age.
Light whiskers bordering on red surrounded his face.

His eye was steady, lively, rapid in its changes.

It was the eye of a man accustomed to take in at a glance all the details of a scene.

Well built, he was inured to all climates, like a bar of steel hardened in cold water.
For ten years Gideon Spilett had been the reporter of the New York Herald, which he enriched by his letters and drawings, for he was as skilful in the use of the pencil as of the pen.