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Title: Roughing It

Author: Mark Twain

Release date: July 3, 2004 [eBook #3177]
Most recently updated: March 31, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3177

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT
***

ROUGHING IT

By Mark Twain

PREFATORY.

This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history or
a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of variegated
vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting reader while away
an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science.
Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning an
interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about which no books
have been written by persons who were on the ground in person, and saw
the happenings of the time with their own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth
and culmination of the silver-mining fever in Nevada—a curious episode, in
some respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has occurred in the
land; and the only one, indeed, that is likely to occur in it.
Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the
book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped: information
appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of
the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could
retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the sources, and the
tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I can only claim
indulgence at the hands of the reader, not justification.
THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. My Brother appointed Secretary of Nevada—I Envy His
Prospective Adventures—Am Appointed Private Secretary Under Him—
My Contentment Complete—Packed in One Hour—Dreams and Visions—
On the Missouri River—A Bully Boat

CHAPTER II. Arrive at St. Joseph—Only Twenty-five Pounds Baggage
Allowed—Farewell to Kid Gloves and Dress Coats—Armed to the Teeth—
The “Allen”—A Cheerful Weapon—Persuaded to Buy a Mule—Schedule
of Luxuries—We Leave the “States”—“Our Coach”—Mails for the Indians
—Between a Wink and an Earthquake—A Modern Sphynx and How She
Entertained Us—A Sociable Heifer

CHAPTER III. “The Thoroughbrace is Broke”—Mails Delivered Properly
—Sleeping Under Difficulties—A Jackass Rabbit Meditating, and on
Business—A Modern Gulliver—Sage-brush—Overcoats as an Article of
Diet—Sad Fate of a Camel—Warning to Experimenters

CHAPTER IV. Making Our Bed—Assaults by the Unabridged—At a
Station—Our Driver a Great and Shining Dignitary—Strange Place for a
Frontyard—Accommodations—Double Portraits—An Heirloom—Our
Worthy Landlord—“Fixings and Things”—An Exile—Slumgullion—A
Well Furnished Table—The Landlord Astonished—Table Etiquette—Wild
Mexican Mules—Stage-coaching and Railroading

CHAPTER V. New Acquaintances—The Cayote—A Dog’s Experiences—
A Disgusted Dog—The Relatives of the Cayote—Meals Taken Away from
Home

CHAPTER VI. The Division Superintendent—The Conductor—The Driver

—One Hundred and Fifty Miles’ Drive Without Sleep—Teaching a
Subordinate—Our Old Friend Jack and a Pilgrim—Ben Holliday Compared
to Moses

CHAPTER VII. Overland City—Crossing the Platte—Bemis’s Buffalo
Hunt—Assault by a Buffalo—Bemis’s Horse Goes Crazy—An Impromptu
Circus—A New Departure—Bemis Finds Refuge in a Tree—Escapes
Finally by a Wonderful Method

CHAPTER VIII. The Pony Express—Fifty Miles Without Stopping—“Here
he Comes”—Alkali Water—Riding an Avalanche—Indian Massacre

CHAPTER IX. Among the Indians—An Unfair Advantage—Laying on our
Arms—A Midnight Murder—Wrath of Outlaws—A Dangerous, yet
Valuable Citizen

CHAPTER X. History of Slade—A Proposed Fist-fight—Encounter with
Jules—Paradise of Outlaws—Slade as Superintendent—As Executioner—
A Doomed Whisky Seller—A Prisoner—A Wife’s Bravery—An Ancient
Enemy Captured—Enjoying a Luxury—Hob-nobbing with Slade—Too
Polite—A Happy Escape

CHAPTER XI. Slade in Montana—“On a Spree”—In Court—Attack on a
Judge—Arrest by the Vigilantes—Turn out of the Miners—Execution of
Slade—Lamentations of His Wife—Was Slade a Coward?

CHAPTER XII. A Mormon Emigrant Train—The Heart of the Rocky
Mountains—Pure Saleratus—A Natural Ice-House—An Entire Inhabitant—
In Sight of “Eternal Snow”—The South Pass—The Parting Streams—An
Unreliable Letter Carrier—Meeting of Old Friends—A Spoiled Watermelon
—Down the Mountain—A Scene of Desolation—Lost in the Dark—
Unnecessary Advice—U.S. Troops and Indians—Sublime Spectacle—
Another Delusion Dispelled—Among the Angels

CHAPTER XIII. Mormons and Gentiles—Exhilarating Drink, and its Effect
on Bemis—Salt Lake City—A Great Contrast—A Mormon Vagrant—Talk
with a Saint—A Visit to the “King”—A Happy Simile

CHAPTER XIV. Mormon Contractors—How Mr. Street Astonished Them
—The Case Before Brigham Young, and How he Disposed of it—
Polygamy Viewed from a New Position

CHAPTER XV. A Gentile Den—Polygamy Discussed—Favorite Wife and
D. 4—Hennery for Retired Wives—Children Need Marking—Cost of a
Gift to No. 6—A Penny- whistle Gift and its Effects—Fathering the
Foundlings—It Resembled Him—The Family Bedstead

CHAPTER XVI. The Mormon Bible—Proofs of its Divinity—Plagiarism
of its Authors—Story of Nephi—Wonderful Battle—Kilkenny Cats
Outdone

CHAPTER XVII. Three Sides to all Questions—Everything “A Quarter”—
Shriveled Up—Emigrants and White Shirts at a Discount—“Forty-
Niners”—Above Par—Real Happiness

CHAPTER XVIII. Alkali Desert—Romance of Crossing Dispelled—Alkali
Dust—Effect on the Mules—Universal Thanksgiving

CHAPTER XIX. The Digger Indians Compared with the Bushmen of
Africa—Food, Life and Characteristics—Cowardly Attack on a Stage
Coach—A Brave Driver—The Noble Red Man

CHAPTER XX. The Great American Desert—Forty Miles on Bones—
Lakes Without Outlets—Greely’s Remarkable Ride—Hank Monk, the
Renowned Driver—Fatal Effects of “Corking” a Story—Bald-Headed
Anecdote

CHAPTER XXI. Alkali Dust—Desolation and Contemplation—Carson
City—Our Journey Ended—We are Introduced to Several Citizens—A
Strange Rebuke—A Washoe Zephyr at Play—Its Office Hours—
Governor’s Palace—Government Offices—Our French Landlady Bridget
O’Flannigan—Shadow Secrets—Cause for a Disturbance at Once—The
Irish Brigade—Mrs. O’Flannigan’s Boarders—The Surveying Expedition—
Escape of the Tarantulas

CHAPTER XXII. The Son of a Nabob—Start for Lake Tahoe—Splendor of
the Views—Trip on the Lake—Camping Out—Reinvigorating Climate—
Clearing a Tract of Land—Securing a Title—Outhouse and Fences

CHAPTER XXIII. A Happy Life—Lake Tahoe and its Moods—
Transparency of the Waters—A Catastrophe—Fire! Fire!—A Magnificent
Spectacle—Homeless Again—We take to the Lake—A Storm—Return to
Carson

CHAPTER XXIV. Resolve to Buy a Horse—Horsemanship in Carson—A
Temptation—Advice Given Me Freely—I Buy the Mexican Plug—My
First Ride—A Good Bucker—I Loan the Plug—Experience of Borrowers—
Attempts to Sell—Expense of the Experiment—A Stranger Taken In

CHAPTER XXV. The Mormons in Nevada—How to Persuade a Loan from
Them—Early History of the Territory—Silver Mines Discovered—The
New Territorial Government—A Foreign One and a Poor One—Its Funny
Struggles for Existence—No Credit, no Cash—Old Abe Currey Sustains it
and its Officers—Instructions and Vouchers—An Indian’s Endorsement—
Toll-Gates

CHAPTER XXVI. The Silver Fever—State of the Market—Silver Bricks—
Tales Told—Off for the Humboldt Mines

CHAPTER XXVII. Our manner of going—Incidents of the Trip—A Warm
but Too Familiar a Bedfellow—Mr. Ballou Objects—Sunshine amid Clouds
—Safely Arrived

CHAPTER XXVIII. Arrive at the Mountains—Building Our Cabin—My
First Prospecting Tour—My First Gold Mine—Pockets Filled With
Treasures—Filtering the News to My Companions—The Bubble Pricked—
All Not Gold That Glitters

CHAPTER XXIX. Out Prospecting—A Silver Mine At Last—Making a
Fortune With Sledge and Drill—A Hard Road to Travel—We Own in
Claims—A Rocky Country

CHAPTER XXX. Disinterested Friends—How “Feet” Were Sold—We
Quit Tunnelling—A Trip to Esmeralda—My Companions—An Indian
Prophesy—A Flood—Our Quarters During It

CHAPTER XXXI. The Guests at “Honey Lake Smith’s”—“Bully Old
Arkansas”—“Our Landlord”—Determined to Fight—The Landlord’s Wife
—The Bully Conquered by Her—Another Start—Crossing the Carson—A
Narrow Escape—Following Our Own Track—A New Guide—Lost in the
Snow

CHAPTER XXXII. Desperate Situation—Attempts to Make a Fire—Our
Horses leave us—We Find Matches—One, Two, Three and the Last—No
Fire—Death Seems Inevitable—We Mourn Over Our Evil Lives—
Discarded Vices—We Forgive Each Other—An Affectionate Farewell—
The Sleep of Oblivion

CHAPTER XXXIII. Return of Consciousness—Ridiculous Developments
—A Station House—Bitter Feelings—Fruits of Repentance—Resurrected
Vices

CHAPTER XXXIV. About Carson—General Buncombe—Hyde vs.
Morgan—How Hyde Lost His Ranch—The Great Landslide Case—The
Trial—General Buncombe in Court—A Wonderful Decision—A Serious
Afterthought

CHAPTER XXXV. A New Travelling Companion—All Full and No
Accommodations—How Captain Nye found Room—and Caused Our
Leaving to be Lamented—The Uses of Tunnelling—A Notable Example—
We Go into the “Claim” Business and Fail—At the Bottom

CHAPTER XXXVI. A Quartz Mill—Amalgamation—“Screening
Tailings”—First Quartz Mill in Nevada—Fire Assay—A Smart Assayer—I
stake for an advance

CHAPTER XXXVII. The Whiteman Cement Mine—Story of its Discovery
—A Secret Expedition—A Nocturnal Adventure—A Distressing Position—

A Failure and a Week’s Holiday

CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mono Lake—Shampooing Made Easy—Thoughtless
Act of Our Dog and the Results—Lye Water—Curiosities of the Lake—
Free Hotel—Some Funny Incidents a Little Overdrawn

CHAPTER XXXIX. Visit to the Islands in Lake Mono—Ashes and
Desolation—Life Amid Death Our Boat Adrift—A Jump For Life—A
Storm On the Lake—A Mass of Soap Suds—Geological Curiosities—A
Week On the Sierras—A Narrow Escape From a Funny Explosion—“Stove
Heap Gone”

CHAPTER XL. The “Wide West” Mine—It is “Interviewed” by Higbie—A
Blind Lead—Worth a Million—We are Rich At Last—Plans for the Future

CHAPTER XLI. A Rheumatic Patient—Day Dreams—An Unfortunate
Stumble—I Leave Suddenly—Another Patient—Higbie in the Cabin—Our
Balloon Bursted—Worth Nothing—Regrets and Explanations—Our Third
Partner

CHAPTER XLII. What to do Next?—Obstacles I Had Met With—“Jack of
All Trades”—Mining Again—Target Shooting—I Turn City Editor—I
Succeed Finely

CHAPTER XLIII. My Friend Boggs—The School Report—Boggs Pays Me
An Old Debt—Virginia City

CHAPTER XLIV. Flush Times—Plenty of Stock—Editorial Puffing—
Stocks Given Me—Salting Mines—A Tragedian In a New Role

CHAPTER XLV. Flush Times Continue—Sanitary Commission Fund—
Wild Enthusiasm of the People—Would not wait to Contribute—The
Sanitary Flour Sack—It is Carried to Gold Hill and Dayton—Final
Reception in Virginia—Results of the Sale—A Grand Total

CHAPTER XLVI. The Nabobs of Those Days—John Smith as a Traveler—
Sudden Wealth—A Sixty-Thousand-Dollar Horse—A Smart Telegraph

Operator—A Nabob in New York City—Charters an Omnibus—“Walk in,
It’s All Free”—“You Can’t Pay a Cent”—“Hold On, Driver, I Weaken”—
Sociability of New Yorkers

CHAPTER XLVII. Buck Fanshaw’s Death—The Cause Thereof—
Preparations for His Burial—Scotty Briggs the Committee Man—He Visits
the Minister—Scotty Can’t Play His Hand—The Minister Gets Mixed—
Both Begin to See—“All Down Again But Nine”—Buck Fanshaw as a
Citizen—How To “Shook Your Mother”—The Funeral—Scotty Briggs as a
Sunday School Teacher

CHAPTER XLVIII. The First Twenty-Six Graves in Nevada—The
Prominent Men of the County—The Man Who Had Killed His Dozen—
Trial by Jury—Specimen Jurors—A Private Grave Yard—The Desperadoes
—Who They Killed—Waking up the Weary Passenger—Satisfaction
Without Fighting

CHAPTER XLIX. Fatal Shooting Affray—Robbery and Desperate Affray
—A Specimen City Official—A Marked Man—A Street Fight—
Punishment of Crime

CHAPTER L. Captain Ned Blakely—Bill Nookes Receives Desired
Information—Killing of Blakely’s Mate—A Walking Battery—Blakely
Secures Nookes—Hang First and Be Tried Afterwards—Captain Blakely as
a Chaplain—The First Chapter of Genesis Read at a Hanging—Nookes
Hung—Blakely’s Regrets

CHAPTER LI. The Weekly Occidental—A Ready Editor—A Novel—A
Concentration of Talent—The Heroes and the Heroines—The Dissolute
Author Engaged—Extraordinary Havoc With the Novel—A Highly
Romantic Chapter—The Lovers Separated—Jonah Out-done—A Lost
Poem—The Aged Pilot Man—Storm On the Erie Canal—Dollinger the
Pilot Man—Terrific Gale—Danger Increases—A Crisis Arrived—Saved as
if by a Miracle

CHAPTER LII. Freights to California—Silver Bricks—Under Ground
Mines—Timber Supports—A Visit to the Mines—The Caved Mines—Total

of Shipments in 1863

CHAPTER LIII. Jim Blaine and his Grandfather’s Ram—Filkin’s Mistake
—Old Miss Wagner and her Glass Eye—Jacobs, the Coffin Dealer—
Waiting for a Customer—His Bargain With Old Robbins—Robbins Sues
for Damage and Collects—A New Use for Missionaries—The Effect—His
Uncle Lem and the Use Providence Made of Him—Sad Fate of Wheeler—
Devotion of His Wife—A Model Monument—What About the Ram?

CHAPTER LIV. Chinese in Virginia City—Washing Bills—Habit of
Imitation—Chinese Immigration—A Visit to Chinatown—Messrs. Ah Sing,
Hong Wo, See Yup, &c.

CHAPTER LV. Tired of Virginia City—An Old Schoolmate—A Two Years’
Loan—Acting as an Editor—Almost Receive an Offer—An Accident—
Three Drunken Anecdotes—Last Look at Mt. Davidson—A Beautiful
Incident

CHAPTER LVI. Off for San Francisco—Western and Eastern Landscapes
—The Hottest place on Earth—Summer and Winter

CHAPTER LVII. California—Novelty of Seeing a Woman—“Well if it
ain’t a Child!”—One Hundred and Fifty Dollars for a Kiss—Waiting for a
turn

CHAPTER LVIII. Life in San Francisco—Worthless Stocks—My First
Earthquake—Reportorial Instincts—Effects of the Shocks—Incidents and
Curiosities—Sabbath Breakers—The Lodger and the Chambermaid—A
Sensible Fashion to Follow—Effects of the Earthquake on the Ministers

CHAPTER LIX. Poor Again—Slinking as a Business—A Model Collector
—Misery loves Company—Comparing Notes for Comfort—A Streak of
Luck—Finding a Dime—Wealthy by Comparison—Two Sumptuous
Dinners

CHAPTER LX. An Old Friend—An Educated Miner—Pocket Mining—
Freaks of Fortune

CHAPTER LXI. Dick Baker and his Cat—Tom Quartz’s Peculiarities—On
an Excursion—Appearance On His Return—A Prejudiced Cat—Empty
Pockets and a Roving Life

CHAPTER LXII. Bound for the Sandwich Islands—The Three Captains—
The Old Admiral—His Daily Habits—His Well Fought Fields—An
Unexpected Opponent—The Admiral Overpowered—The Victor Declared
a Hero

CHAPTER LXIII. Arrival at the Islands—Honolulu—What I Saw There—
Dress and Habits of the Inhabitants—The Animal Kingdom—Fruits and
Delightful Effects

CHAPTER LXIV. An Excursion—Captain Phillips and his Turn-Out—A
Horseback Ride—A Vicious Animal—Nature and Art—Interesting Ruins—
All Praise to the Missionaries

CHAPTER LXV. Interesting Mementoes and Relics—An Old Legend of a
Frightful Leap—An Appreciative Horse—Horse Jockeys and Their
Brothers—A New Trick—A Hay Merchant—Good Country for Horse
Lovers

CHAPTER LXVI. A Saturday Afternoon—Sandwich Island Girls on a
Frolic—The Poi Merchant—Grand Gala Day—A Native Dance—Church
Membership—Cats and Officials—An Overwhelming Discovery

CHAPTER LXVII. The Legislature of the Island—What Its President Has
Seen—Praying for an Enemy—Women’s Rights—Romantic Fashions—
Worship of the Shark—Desire for Dress—Full Dress—Not Paris Style—
Playing Empire—Officials and Foreign Ambassadors—Overwhelming
Magnificence

CHAPTER LXVIII. A Royal Funeral—Order of Procession—Pomp and
Ceremony—A Striking Contrast—A Sick Monarch—Human Sacrifices at
His Death—Burial Orgies

CHAPTER LXIX. “Once more upon the Waters.”—A Noisy Passenger—
Several Silent Ones—A Moonlight Scene—Fruits and Plantations

CHAPTER LXX. A Droll Character—Mrs. Beazely and Her Son—
Meditations on Turnips—A Letter from Horace Greeley—An Indignant
Rejoinder—The Letter Translated but too Late

CHAPTER LXXI. Kealakekua Bay—Death of Captain Cook—His
Monument—Its Construction—On Board the Schooner

CHAPTER LXXII. Young Kanakas in New England—A Temple Built by
Ghosts—Female Bathers—I Stood Guard—Women and Whiskey—A Fight
for Religion—Arrival of Missionaries

CHAPTER LXXIII. Native Canoes—Surf Bathing—A Sanctuary—How
Built—The Queen’s Rock—Curiosities—Petrified Lava

CHAPTER LXXIV. Visit to the Volcano—The Crater—Pillar of Fire—
Magnificent Spectacle—A Lake of Fire

CHAPTER LXXV. The North Lake—Fountains of Fire—Streams of
Burning Lava—Tidal Waves

CHAPTER LXXVI. A Reminiscence—Another Horse Story—My Ride
with the Retired Milk Horse—A Picnicing Excursion—Dead Volcano of
Holeakala—Comparison with Vesuvius—An Inside View

CHAPTER LXXVII. A Curious Character—A Series of Stories—Sad Fate
of a Liar—Evidence of Insanity

CHAPTER LXXVIII. Return to San Francisco—Ship Amusements—
Preparing for Lecturing—Valuable Assistance Secured—My First Attempt
—The Audience Carried—“All’s Well that Ends Well.”

CHAPTER LXXIX. Highwaymen—A Predicament—A Huge Joke—
Farewell to California—At Home Again—Great Changes. Moral.

APPENDIX. A.—Brief Sketch of Mormon History B.—The Mountain
Meadows Massacre C.—Concerning a Frightful Assassination that was
never Consummated

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. THE MINERS’ DREAM

2. ENVIOUS CONTEMPLATIONS

3. INNOCENT DREAMS

4. LIGHT TRAVELING ORDER

5. THE “ALLEN”

6. INDUCEMENTS TO PURCHASE

7. THE FACETIOUS DRIVER

8. PLEASING NEWS

9. THE SPHYNX

10. MEDITATION

11. ON BUSINESS

12. AUTHOR AS GULLIVER

13. A TOUCH STATEMENT

14. THIRD TRIP OF THE UNABRIDGED

15. A POWERFUL GLASS

16. AN HEIRLOOM

17. OUR LANDLORD

18. DIGNIFIED EXILE

19. DRINKING SLUMGULLION

20. A JOKE WITHOUT CREAM

21. PULLMAN CAR DINING-SALOON

22. OUR MORNING RIDE

23. PRAIRIE DOGS

24. A CAYOTE

25. SHOWING RESPECT TO RELATIVES

26. THE CONDUCTOR

27. TEACHING A SUBORDINATE

28. JACK AND THE ELDERLY PILGRIM

29. CROSSING THE PLATTE

30. I BEGAN TO PRAY

31. A NEW DEPARTURE

32. SUSPENDED OPERATIONS

33. A WONDERFUL LIE

34. TALL PIECE

35. HERE HE COMES

36. CHANGING HORSES

37. RIDING THE AVALANCHE

38. INDIAN COUNTRY

39. A PROPOSED FIST FIGHT

40. FROM BEHIND THE DOOR

41. SLADE AS AN EXECUTIONER

42. AN UNPLEASANT VIEW

43. UNAPPRECIATED POLITENESS

44. SLADE IN COURT

45. A WIFE’S LAMENTATIONS

46. THE CONCENTRATED INHABITANT

47. THE SOUTH PASS

48. THE PARTED STREAMS

49. IT SPOILED THE MELON

50. THE CAYOTE AND THE RAVEN

51. “DON’T COME HERE ...

52. “THINK I’M A FOOL ...

53. THE “DESTROYING ANGEL...

54. EFFECTS OF “VALLEY TAN”

55. ONE CREST

56. THE OTHER

57. THE VAGRANT

58. PORTRAIT OF EBER KIMBALL

59. PORTRAIT OR BRIGHAM YOUNG

60. THE CONTRACTORS BEFORE THE KING

61. I WAS TOUCHED

62. THE ENDOWMENT

63. FAVORITE WIFE AND D.4

64. NEEDED MARKING

65. A REMARKABLE RESEMBLANCE

66. THE FAMILY BEDSTEAD

67. THE MIRACULOUS COMPASS

68. THREE SIDES TO A QUESTION

69. RESULT OF HFGH FREIGHTS

70. A SHRIVELED QUARTER

71. AN OBJECT OF PITY

72. TAIL-PIECE

73. TAIL-PIECE

74. GOSHOTT INDIANS HANGING AROUND

75. THE DRIVE FOR LIFE

76. GREELEY’S RIDE

77. BOTTLING AN ANECDOTE

78. TAIL-PIECE

79. CONTEMPLATION

80. THE WASHOE ZEPHYR

81. THE GOVERNOR’S HOUSE

82. DARK DISCLOSURES

83. THE IRISH BRIGADE

84. RECREATION

85. THE TARANTULA

86. LIGHT THROWN ON THE SUBJECT

87. I STEERED

88. THE INVALID

89. THE RESTORED

90. OUR HOUSE

91. AT BUSINESS

92. FIGHT AT LAKE TAHOE

93. “THINK HIM AN AMERICAN HORSE”

94. UNEXPECTED ELEVATION

95. UNIVERSALLY UNSETTLED

96. RIDING THE PLUG

97. WANTED EXERCISE

98. BORROWING MADE EASY

99. FREE RIDES

100. SATISFACTORY VOUCHERS

101. NEEDS PRAYING FOR

102. MAP OF TOLL ROADS

103. UNLOADING SILVER BRICKS

104. VIEW IN HUMBOLDT MOUNTAINS

105. GOING TO HUMBOLDT

106. BALLOU’S BEDFELLOW

107. PLEASURES OF CAMPING OUT

108. THE SECRET SEARCH

109. “CAST YOUR EYE ON THAT ...

110. “WE’VE GOT IT”

111. INCIPIENT MILLIONAIRES

112. ROCKS-TAIL-PIECE

113. “DO YOU SEE IT?”

114. FAREWELL SWEET RIVER

115. THE RESCUE

116. “MR. ARKANSAS ...

117. AN ARMED ALLY

118. CROSSING THE FLOOD

119. ADVANCE IN A CIRCLE

120, THE SONGSTER

121. THE FOXES HAVE HOLES-TAIL-PIECE

122. A FLAT FAILURE

123. THE LAST MATCH

124. DISCARDED VICES

125. FLAMES-TAIL-PIECE

127. IT WAS THUS WE MET

128. TAKING POSSESSION

129. A GREAT EFFORT

130. REARRANGING AND SHIFTING

131. WE LEFT LAMENTED

132. PICTURE OF TOWNSEND’S TUNNEL

133. QUARTZ MILL

134. ANOTHER PROCESS OF AMALGAMATION

135. FIRST QUARTZ MILL IN NEVADA

136. A SLICE OF RICH ORE

137. THE SAVED BROTHER

138. ON A SECRET EXPEDITION

139. LAKE MONO

140. RATHER SOAPY

141. A BARK UNDER FULL SAIL

142. A MODEL BOARDING HOUSE

143. LIFE AMID DEATH

144. A JUMP FOR LIFE

145. “STOVE HEAP GONE”

146. INTERVIEWING THE “WIDE WEST”

147. WORTH A MILLION

148. MILLIONAIRES LAYING PLANS

149. DANGEROUSLY SICK

150. WORTH NOTHING

151. THE COMPROMISE

152. ONE OF MY FAILURES

153. TARGET SHOOTING

154. AS CITY EDITOR

155. THE ENTIRE MARKET

156. A FRIEND INDEED

157. UNION-TAIL-PIECE

158. AN EDUCATIONAL REPORT

159. NO PARTICULAR HURRY

160. VIEW OF VIRGINIA CITY AND MT. DAVIDSON

161. A NEW MINE

162. TRY A FEW

163. PORTRAIT OF MR. STEWART

164. SELLING A MINE

165. COULDN’T WAIT

166. THE GREAT “FLOUR SACS” PROCESSION

167. TAIL-PIECE

168. A NABOB

169. MAGNIFICENCE AND MISERY

170. A FRIENDLY DRIVER

171. ASTONISHES THE NATIVES

172. COL. JACK WEAKENS

173. SCOTTY BRIGGS AND THE MINISTER

174. REGULATING MATTERS

175. DIDN’T SHOOK HIS MOTHER

176. SCOTTY AS S. S. TEACHER

177. THE MAN WHO HAD KILLED HIS DOZEN

178. THE UNPREJUDICED JURY

179. A DESPERADO GIVING REFERENCE

180. SATISFYING A FOE

181. TAIL-PIECE

182. GIVING INFORMATION

183. A WALKING BATTERY

184. OVERHAULING HIS MANIFEST

185. SHIP-TAIL-PIECE

186. THE HEROES AND HEROINES OF THE STORY

187. DISSOLUTE AUTHOR

188. THERE SAT THE LAWYER

189. JONAH OUTDONE

190. DOLLINGER

191. LOW BRIDGE

192. SHORTENING SAIL

193. LIGHTENING SHIP

194. THE MARVELLOUS RESCUE

195. SILVER BRICKS

196. TIMBER SUPPORTS

197. FROM GALLERY TO GALLERY

198. JIM BLAINE

199. HURRAH FOR NIXON

200. MISS WAGNER

201. WAITING FOR A CUSTOMER

202. WAS TO BE THERE

209. THE MONUMENT

205. WHERE IS THE RAM-TAIL-PIECE

205. CHINESE WASH BILL

206. IMITATION

207. CHINESE LOTTERY

208. CHINESE MERCHANT AT HOME

209. AN OLD FRIEND

210. FAREWELL AND ACCIDENT

211. “GIMME A CIGAR”

212. THE HERALD OF GLAD NEWS

213. FLAG-TAIL-PIECE

214. A NEW ENGLAND SCENE

215. A VARIABLE CLIMATE

216. SACRAMENTO AND THREE NODES AWAY

217. “FETCH HER OUT ...

218. “WELL IF IT AINT A CHILD ...

219. A GENUINE LIVE WOMAN

220. THE GRACE OF A KANGAROO

221. DREAMS DISSIPATED

222. THE “ONE HORSE SHAY” OUTDONE

223. HARD ON THE INNOCENTS

224. DRY BONES SHAKEN

225. “OH! WHAT, SHALL I DO!...

226. “GET OUT YOUR TOWEL MY DEAR”

227. “WE WILL OMIT THE BENEDICTION...

228. SLINKING

229. A PRIZE

230. A LOOK IN AT THE WINDOW

231. “DO IT STRANGER”

232. THE OLD COLLEGIATE

233. STRIKING A POCKET

234. TOM QUARTZ

235. AN ADVANTAGE TAKEN

236. AFTER AN EXCURSION

237. THE THREE CAPTAINS

238. THE OLD ADMIRAL

239. THE DESERTED FIELD

240. WILLIAMS

241. SCENE ON THE SANDWICH ISLANDS

242. FASHIONABLE ATTIRE

243. A BITE

244. RECONNOITERING

246. LOOKING FOR MISCHIEF

247. A FAMILY LIKENESS

248. SIT DOWN To LISTEN

249. “MY BROTHER, WE TWINS”

250. EXTRAORDINARY CAPERS

251. A LOAD OF HAY

252. MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA

253. SANDWICH ISLAND GIRLS

254. ORIGINAL HAM SANDWICH

255. “I KISSED HIM FOR HIS MOTHER”

256. AN OUTSIDER

257. AN ENEMY’S PRAYER

258. VISITING THE MISSIONARIES

259. FULL CHURCH DRESS

260. PLAYING EMPIRE

261. ROYALTY AND ITS SATELLITES

262. A HIGH PRIVATE

263. A MODERN FUNERAL

264. FORMER FUNERAL ORGIES

265. A PASSENGER

266. MOONLIGHT ON THE WATER

267. GOING INTO THE MOUNTAINS

268. EVENING

289. THE DEMENTED

270. DISCUSSING TURNIPS

271. GREELEY’S LETTER

272. KEALAKEKUA BAY AND COOK’S MONUMENT

273. THE GHOSTLY BUILDERS

274. ON GUARD

275. BREAKING THE TABU

276. SURF BATHING

277. SURF BATHING A FAILURE

278. CITY OF REFUGE

279. THE QUEEN’S ROCK

280. TAIL-PIECE

281. THE PILLAR OF FIRE

282. THE CRATER

283. BROKE THROUGH

284. FIRE FOUNTAINS

285. LAVA STREAM

286. A TIDAL WAVE

287. TRIP ON THE MILKY WAY

288. A VIEW IN THE TAO VALLEY

289. MAGNIFICENT SPORT

290. ELEVEN MILES TO SEE

291. CHASED BY A STORM

292. LEAVING WORK

293. TAIL-PIECE

294. OUR AMUSEMENTS

295. SEVERE CASE OF STAGE FRIGHT

296. MY THREE PARQUETTE ALLIES

297. SAWYER IN THE CIRCLE

298. A PREDICAMENT

299. THE BEST OF THE JOKE

300. THE END

CHAPTER I.

My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an
office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities
of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the
Governor’s absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the
title of “Mr. Secretary,” gave to the great position an air of wild and
imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I
coveted his distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and
especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the curious
new world he was going to explore. He was going to travel! I never had
been away from home, and that word “travel” had a seductive charm for
me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the
great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of the Far West, and
would see buffaloes and Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have
all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever
such a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero. And
he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe go about of an
afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of
shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside. And by and by
he would become very rich, and return home by sea, and be able to talk as
calmly about San Francisco and the ocean, and “the isthmus” as if it was
nothing of any consequence to have seen those marvels face to face.

What I suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And
so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of private
secretary under him, it appeared to me that the heavens and the earth passed
away, and the firmament was rolled together as a scroll! I had nothing more
to desire. My contentment was complete.
At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not much
packing up was necessary, because we were going in the overland stage
from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only allowed a
small quantity of baggage apiece. There was no Pacific railroad in those
fine times of ten or twelve years ago—not a single rail of it. I only proposed
to stay in Nevada three months—I had no thought of staying longer than
that. I meant to see all I could that was new and strange, and then hurry
home to business. I little thought that I would not see the end of that three-
month pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years!
I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars, and in due
time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis wharf on board a
steamboat bound up the Missouri River.

We were six days going from St. Louis to “St. Jo.”—a trip that was so
dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left no more impression on my
memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that many days.
No record is left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a confused jumble of
savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked over with one wheel or
the other; and of reefs which we butted and butted, and then retired from
and climbed over in some softer place; and of sand-bars which we roosted
on occasionally, and rested, and then got out our crutches and sparred over.
In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by land, for she
was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and
clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain
said she was a “bully” boat, and all she wanted was more “shear” and a
bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep
sagacity not to say so.

CHAPTER II.

The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph
was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dollars apiece
for tickets per overland coach to Carson City, Nevada.

The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty breakfast, and
hurried to the starting-place. Then an inconvenience presented itself which
we had not properly appreciated before, namely, that one cannot make a
heavy traveling trunk stand for twenty-five pounds of baggage—because it
weighs a good deal more. But that was all we could take—twenty-five
pounds each. So we had to snatch our trunks open, and make a selection in
a good deal of a hurry. We put our lawful twenty-five pounds apiece all in
one valise, and shipped the trunks back to St. Louis again. It was a sad
parting, for now we had no swallow-tail coats and white kid gloves to wear
at Pawnee receptions in the Rocky Mountains, and no stove-pipe hats nor
patent-leather boots, nor anything else necessary to make life calm and
peaceful. We were reduced to a war-footing. Each of us put on a rough,
heavy suit of clothing, woolen army shirt and “stogy” boots included; and
into the valise we crowded a few white shirts, some under-clothing and
such things. My brother, the Secretary, took along about four pounds of
United States statutes and six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary; for we did
not know—poor innocents—that such things could be bought in San
Francisco on one day and received in Carson City the next. I was armed to
the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter, which carried
a ball like a homoeopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose
for an adult. But I thought it was grand. It appeared to me to be a dangerous
weapon. It only had one fault—you could not hit anything with it. One of
our “conductors” practiced awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood
still and behaved herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving
about, and he got to shooting at other things, she came to grief. The
Secretary had a small-sized Colt’s revolver strapped around him for
protection against the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it
uncapped. Mr. George Bemis was dismally formidable. George Bemis was
our fellow-traveler.

We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original
“Allen” revolver, such as irreverent people called a “pepper-box.” Simply
drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger came
back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and
presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball. To
aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was
probably never done with an “Allen” in the world. But George’s was a
reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers
afterward said, “If she didn’t get what she went after, she would fetch
something else.” And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed
against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the
left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a
double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a
cheerful weapon—the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at
once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but
behind it.

We took two or three blankets for protection against frosty weather in the
mountains. In the matter of luxuries we were modest—we took none along
but some pipes and five pounds of smoking tobacco. We had two large
canteens to carry water in, between stations on the Plains, and we also took
with us a little shot-bag of silver coin for daily expenses in the way of
breakfasts and dinners.
By eight o’clock everything was ready, and we were on the other side of
the river. We jumped into the stage, the driver cracked his whip, and we
bowled away and left “the States” behind us. It was a superb summer
morning, and all the landscape was brilliant with sunshine. There was a
freshness and breeziness, too, and an exhilarating sense of emancipation
from all sorts of cares and responsibilities, that almost made us feel that the
years we had spent in the close, hot city, toiling and slaving, had been
wasted and thrown away. We were spinning along through Kansas, and in
the course of an hour and a half we were fairly abroad on the great Plains.
Just here the land was rolling—a grand sweep of regular elevations and
depressions as far as the eye could reach—like the stately heave and swell
of the ocean’s bosom after a storm. And everywhere were cornfields,
accenting with squares of deeper green, this limitless expanse of grassy
land. But presently this sea upon dry ground was to lose its “rolling”
character and stretch away for seven hundred miles as level as a floor!

Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage, of the most
sumptuous description—an imposing cradle on wheels. It was drawn by six
handsome horses, and by the side of the driver sat the “conductor,” the
legitimate captain of the craft; for it was his business to take charge and
care of the mails, baggage, express matter, and passengers. We three were
the only passengers, this trip. We sat on the back seat, inside. About all the
rest of the coach was full of mail bags—for we had three days’ delayed
mails with us. Almost touching our knees, a perpendicular wall of mail
matter rose up to the roof. There was a great pile of it strapped on top of the
stage, and both the fore and hind boots were full. We had twenty-seven
hundred pounds of it aboard, the driver said—“a little for Brigham, and
Carson, and ’Frisco, but the heft of it for the Injuns, which is powerful
troublesome ’thout they get plenty of truck to read.”

But as he just then got up a fearful convulsion of his countenance which
was suggestive of a wink being swallowed by an earthquake, we guessed
that his remark was intended to be facetious, and to mean that we would
unload the most of our mail matter somewhere on the Plains and leave it to
the Indians, or whosoever wanted it.

We changed horses every ten miles, all day long, and fairly flew over the
hard, level road. We jumped out and stretched our legs every time the coach
stopped, and so the night found us still vivacious and unfatigued.
After supper a woman got in, who lived about fifty miles further on, and
we three had to take turns at sitting outside with the driver and conductor.
Apparently she was not a talkative woman. She would sit there in the
gathering twilight and fasten her steadfast eyes on a mosquito rooting into
her arm, and slowly she would raise her other hand till she had got his
range, and then she would launch a slap at him that would have jolted a
cow; and after that she would sit and contemplate the corpse with tranquil
satisfaction—for she never missed her mosquito; she was a dead shot at
short range. She never removed a carcase, but left them there for bait. I sat
by this grim Sphynx and watched her kill thirty or forty mosquitoes—
watched her, and waited for her to say something, but she never did. So I
finally opened the conversation myself. I said:
“The mosquitoes are pretty bad, about here, madam.”
“You bet!”

“What did I understand you to say, madam?”
“You BET!”

Then she cheered up, and faced around and said:
“Danged if I didn’t begin to think you fellers was deef and dumb. I did,
b’gosh. Here I’ve sot, and sot, and sot, a-bust’n muskeeters and wonderin’
what was ailin’ ye. Fust I thot you was deef and dumb, then I thot you was
sick or crazy, or suthin’, and then by and by I begin to reckon you was a
passel of sickly fools that couldn’t think of nothing to say. Wher’d ye come
from?”
The Sphynx was a Sphynx no more! The fountains of her great deep were
broken up, and she rained the nine parts of speech forty days and forty
nights, metaphorically speaking, and buried us under a desolating deluge of
trivial gossip that left not a crag or pinnacle of rejoinder projecting above
the tossing waste of dislocated grammar and decomposed pronunciation!
How we suffered, suffered, suffered! She went on, hour after hour, till I
was sorry I ever opened the mosquito question and gave her a start. She
never did stop again until she got to her journey’s end toward daylight; and

then she stirred us up as she was leaving the stage (for we were nodding, by
that time), and said:
“Now you git out at Cottonwood, you fellers, and lay over a couple o’
days, and I’ll be along some time to-night, and if I can do ye any good by
edgin’ in a word now and then, I’m right thar. Folks’ll tell you’t I’ve always
ben kind o’ offish and partic’lar for a gal that’s raised in the woods, and I
am, with the rag-tag and bob-tail, and a gal has to be, if she wants to be
anything, but when people comes along which is my equals, I reckon I’m a
pretty sociable heifer after all.”
We resolved not to “lay by at Cottonwood.”

CHAPTER III.

About an hour and a half before daylight we were bowling along
smoothly over the road—so smoothly that our cradle only rocked in a
gentle, lulling way, that was gradually soothing us to sleep, and dulling our
consciousness—when something gave away under us! We were dimly
aware of it, but indifferent to it. The coach stopped. We heard the driver and
conductor talking together outside, and rummaging for a lantern, and
swearing because they could not find it—but we had no interest in whatever
had happened, and it only added to our comfort to think of those people out
there at work in the murky night, and we snug in our nest with the curtains
drawn. But presently, by the sounds, there seemed to be an examination
going on, and then the driver’s voice said:
“By George, the thoroughbrace is broke!”
This startled me broad awake—as an undefined sense of calamity is
always apt to do. I said to myself: “Now, a thoroughbrace is probably part
of a horse; and doubtless a vital part, too, from the dismay in the driver’s
voice. Leg, maybe—and yet how could he break his leg waltzing along
such a road as this? No, it can’t be his leg. That is impossible, unless he was
reaching for the driver. Now, what can be the thoroughbrace of a horse, I
wonder? Well, whatever comes, I shall not air my ignorance in this crowd,
anyway.”
Just then the conductor’s face appeared at a lifted curtain, and his lantern
glared in on us and our wall of mail matter. He said: “Gents, you’ll have to
turn out a spell. Thoroughbrace is broke.”
We climbed out into a chill drizzle, and felt ever so homeless and dreary.
When I found that the thing they called a “thoroughbrace” was the massive
combination of belts and springs which the coach rocks itself in, I said to
the driver:

“I never saw a thoroughbrace used up like that, before, that I can
remember. How did it happen?”
“Why, it happened by trying to make one coach carry three days’ mail—
that’s how it happened,” said he. “And right here is the very direction which
is wrote on all the newspaper-bags which was to be put out for the Injuns
for to keep ’em quiet. It’s most uncommon lucky, becuz it’s so nation dark I
should ’a’ gone by unbeknowns if that air thoroughbrace hadn’t broke.”
I knew that he was in labor with another of those winks of his, though I
could not see his face, because he was bent down at work; and wishing him
a safe delivery, I turned to and helped the rest get out the mail-sacks. It
made a great pyramid by the roadside when it was all out. When they had
mended the thoroughbrace we filled the two boots again, but put no mail on
top, and only half as much inside as there was before. The conductor bent
all the seat-backs down, and then filled the coach just half full of mail-bags
from end to end. We objected loudly to this, for it left us no seats. But the
conductor was wiser than we, and said a bed was better than seats, and
moreover, this plan would protect his thoroughbraces. We never wanted any
seats after that. The lazy bed was infinitely preferable. I had many an
exciting day, subsequently, lying on it reading the statutes and the
dictionary, and wondering how the characters would turn out.
The conductor said he would send back a guard from the next station to
take charge of the abandoned mail-bags, and we drove on.
It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped legs full length
on the mail sacks, and gazed out through the windows across the wide
wastes of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to where there was an
expectant look in the eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the form
of a tranquil and contented ecstasy. The stage whirled along at a spanking
gait, the breeze flapping curtains and suspended coats in a most exhilarating
way; the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the pattering of the horses’
hoofs, the cracking of the driver’s whip, and his “Hi-yi! g’lang!” were
music; the spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared to give us a
mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up and look after us with
interest, or envy, or something; and as we lay and smoked the pipe of peace
and compared all this luxury with the years of tiresome city life that had
gone before it, we felt that there was only one complete and satisfying
happiness in the world, and we had found it.

After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgotten, we three
climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and let the conductor have our bed
for a nap. And by and by, when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on my
face on top of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept for an
hour or more. That will give one an appreciable idea of those matchless
roads. Instinct will make a sleeping man grip a fast hold of the railing when
the stage jolts, but when it only swings and sways, no grip is necessary.
Overland drivers and conductors used to sit in their places and sleep thirty
or forty minutes at a time, on good roads, while spinning along at the rate of
eight or ten miles an hour. I saw them do it, often. There was no danger
about it; a sleeping man will seize the irons in time when the coach jolts.
These men were hard worked, and it was not possible for them to stay
awake all the time.
By and by we passed through Marysville, and over the Big Blue and
Little Sandy; thence about a mile, and entered Nebraska. About a mile
further on, we came to the Big Sandy—one hundred and eighty miles from
St. Joseph.
As the sun was going down, we saw the first specimen of an animal
known familiarly over two thousand miles of mountain and desert—from
Kansas clear to the Pacific Ocean—as the “jackass rabbit.” He is well
named. He is just like any other rabbit, except that he is from one third to
twice as large, has longer legs in proportion to his size, and has the most
preposterous ears that ever were mounted on any creature but a jackass.

When he is sitting quiet, thinking about his sins, or is absent-minded or
unapprehensive of danger, his majestic ears project above him
conspicuously; but the breaking of a twig will scare him nearly to death,
and then he tilts his ears back gently and starts for home. All you can see,
then, for the next minute, is his long gray form stretched out straight and
“streaking it” through the low sage-brush, head erect, eyes right, and ears
just canted a little to the rear, but showing you where the animal is, all the
time, the same as if he carried a jib. Now and then he makes a marvelous
spring with his long legs, high over the stunted sage-brush, and scores a
leap that would make a horse envious. Presently he comes down to a long,
graceful “lope,” and shortly he mysteriously disappears. He has crouched
behind a sage-bush, and will sit there and listen and tremble until you get
within six feet of him, when he will get under way again. But one must
shoot at this creature once, if he wishes to see him throw his heart into his
heels, and do the best he knows how. He is frightened clear through, now,
and he lays his long ears down on his back, straightens himself out like a
yard-stick every spring he makes, and scatters miles behind him with an
easy indifference that is enchanting.

Our party made this specimen “hump himself,” as the conductor said.
The secretary started him with a shot from the Colt; I commenced spitting
at him with my weapon; and all in the same instant the old “Allen’s” whole
broadside let go with a rattling crash, and it is not putting it too strong to
say that the rabbit was frantic! He dropped his ears, set up his tail, and left
for San Francisco at a speed which can only be described as a flash and a
vanish! Long after he was out of sight we could hear him whiz.
I do not remember where we first came across “sage-brush,” but as I
have been speaking of it I may as well describe it.
This is easily done, for if the reader can imagine a gnarled and venerable
live oak-tree reduced to a little shrub two feet-high, with its rough bark, its
foliage, its twisted boughs, all complete, he can picture the “sage-brush”
exactly. Often, on lazy afternoons in the mountains, I have lain on the
ground with my face under a sage-bush, and entertained myself with
fancying that the gnats among its foliage were liliputian birds, and that the
ants marching and countermarching about its base were liliputian flocks and
herds, and myself some vast loafer from Brobdignag waiting to catch a little
citizen and eat him.

It is an imposing monarch of the forest in exquisite miniature, is the
“sage-brush.” Its foliage is a grayish green, and gives that tint to desert and
mountain. It smells like our domestic sage, and “sage-tea” made from it
taste like the sage-tea which all boys are so well acquainted with. The sage-
brush is a singularly hardy plant, and grows right in the midst of deep sand,
and among barren rocks, where nothing else in the vegetable world would
try to grow, except “bunch-grass.”—[“Bunch-grass” grows on the bleak
mountain-sides of Nevada and neighboring territories, and offers excellent
feed for stock, even in the dead of winter, wherever the snow is blown aside
and exposes it; notwithstanding its unpromising home, bunch-grass is a
better and more nutritious diet for cattle and horses than almost any other
hay or grass that is known—so stock-men say.]—The sage-bushes grow
from three to six or seven feet apart, all over the mountains and deserts of
the Far West, clear to the borders of California. There is not a tree of any
kind in the deserts, for hundreds of miles—there is no vegetation at all in a
regular desert, except the sage-brush and its cousin the “greasewood,”
which is so much like the sage-brush that the difference amounts to little.
Camp-fires and hot suppers in the deserts would be impossible but for the
friendly sage-brush. Its trunk is as large as a boy’s wrist (and from that up to

a man’s arm), and its crooked branches are half as large as its trunk—all
good, sound, hard wood, very like oak.
When a party camps, the first thing to be done is to cut sage-brush; and in
a few minutes there is an opulent pile of it ready for use. A hole a foot wide,
two feet deep, and two feet long, is dug, and sage-brush chopped up and
burned in it till it is full to the brim with glowing coals. Then the cooking
begins, and there is no smoke, and consequently no swearing. Such a fire
will keep all night, with very little replenishing; and it makes a very
sociable camp-fire, and one around which the most impossible
reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and profoundly entertaining.
Sage-brush is very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a distinguished
failure. Nothing can abide the taste of it but the jackass and his illegitimate
child the mule. But their testimony to its nutritiousness is worth nothing, for
they will eat pine knots, or anthracite coal, or brass filings, or lead pipe, or
old bottles, or anything that comes handy, and then go off looking as
grateful as if they had had oysters for dinner. Mules and donkeys and
camels have appetites that anything will relieve temporarily, but nothing
satisfy.
In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of
my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a
critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of getting
one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as an article of
apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet. He put his foot on
it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed
at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in
a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as an
overcoat before, in his life. Then he smacked his lips once or twice, and
reached after the other sleeve. Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a
smile of such contentment that it was plain to see that he regarded that as
the daintiest thing about an overcoat. The tails went next, along with some
percussion caps and cough candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople.

And then my newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a
chance in that—manuscript letters written for the home papers. But he was
treading on dangerous ground, now. He began to come across solid wisdom
in those documents that was rather weighty on his stomach; and
occasionally he would take a joke that would shake him up till it loosened
his teeth; it was getting to be perilous times with him, but he held his grip
with good courage and hopefully, till at last he began to stumble on
statements that not even a camel could swallow with impunity. He began to
gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his forelegs to spread, and in
about a quarter of a minute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter’s work-bench,
and died a death of indescribable agony. I went and pulled the manuscript
out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive creature had choked to death
on one of the mildest and gentlest statements of fact that I ever laid before a
trusting public.
I was about to say, when diverted from my subject, that occasionally one
finds sage-bushes five or six feet high, and with a spread of branch and
foliage in proportion, but two or two and a half feet is the usual height.

CHAPTER IV.

As the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we made
preparation for bed. We stirred up the hard leather letter-sacks, and the
knotty canvas bags of printed matter (knotty and uneven because of
projecting ends and corners of magazines, boxes and books). We stirred
them up and redisposed them in such a way as to make our bed as level as
possible. And we did improve it, too, though after all our work it had an
upheaved and billowy look about it, like a little piece of a stormy sea. Next
we hunted up our boots from odd nooks among the mail-bags where they
had settled, and put them on. Then we got down our coats, vests, pantaloons
and heavy woolen shirts, from the arm-loops where they had been swinging
all day, and clothed ourselves in them—for, there being no ladies either at
the stations or in the coach, and the weather being hot, we had looked to our
comfort by stripping to our underclothing, at nine o’clock in the morning.
All things being now ready, we stowed the uneasy Dictionary where it
would lie as quiet as possible, and placed the water-canteens and pistols
where we could find them in the dark. Then we smoked a final pipe, and
swapped a final yarn; after which, we put the pipes, tobacco and bag of coin
in snug holes and caves among the mail-bags, and then fastened down the
coach curtains all around, and made the place as “dark as the inside of a
cow,” as the conductor phrased it in his picturesque way. It was certainly as
dark as any place could be—nothing was even dimly visible in it. And
finally, we rolled ourselves up like silk-worms, each person in his own
blanket, and sank peacefully to sleep.
Whenever the stage stopped to change horses, we would wake up, and try
to recollect where we were—and succeed—and in a minute or two the stage
would be off again, and we likewise. We began to get into country, now,
threaded here and there with little streams. These had high, steep banks on
each side, and every time we flew down one bank and scrambled up the

other, our party inside got mixed somewhat. First we would all be down in a
pile at the forward end of the stage, nearly in a sitting posture, and in a
second we would shoot to the other end, and stand on our heads. And we
would sprawl and kick, too, and ward off ends and corners of mail- bags
that came lumbering over us and about us; and as the dust rose from the
tumult, we would all sneeze in chorus, and the majority of us would
grumble, and probably say some hasty thing, like: “Take your elbow out of
my ribs!—can’t you quit crowding?”
Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the other, the
Unabridged Dictionary would come too; and every time it came it damaged
somebody. One trip it “barked” the Secretary’s elbow; the next trip it hurt
me in the stomach, and the third it tilted Bemis’s nose up till he could look
down his nostrils—he said. The pistols and coin soon settled to the bottom,
but the pipes, pipe-stems, tobacco and canteens clattered and floundered
after the Dictionary every time it made an assault on us, and aided and
abetted the book by spilling tobacco in our eyes, and water down our backs.

Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable night. It wore
gradually away, and when at last a cold gray light was visible through the
puckers and chinks in the curtains, we yawned and stretched with
satisfaction, shed our cocoons, and felt that we had slept as much as was
necessary. By and by, as the sun rose up and warmed the world, we pulled

off our clothes and got ready for breakfast. We were just pleasantly in time,
for five minutes afterward the driver sent the weird music of his bugle
winding over the grassy solitudes, and presently we detected a low hut or
two in the distance. Then the rattling of the coach, the clatter of our six
horses’ hoofs, and the driver’s crisp commands, awoke to a louder and
stronger emphasis, and we went sweeping down on the station at our
smartest speed. It was fascinating—that old overland stagecoaching.
We jumped out in undress uniform. The driver tossed his gathered reins
out on the ground, gaped and stretched complacently, drew off his heavy
buckskin gloves with great deliberation and insufferable dignity—taking
not the slightest notice of a dozen solicitous inquires after his health, and
humbly facetious and flattering accostings, and obsequious tenders of
service, from five or six hairy and half-civilized station-keepers and hostlers
who were nimbly unhitching our steeds and bringing the fresh team out of
the stables—for in the eyes of the stage-driver of that day, station-keepers
and hostlers were a sort of good enough low creatures, useful in their place,
and helping to make up a world, but not the kind of beings which a person
of distinction could afford to concern himself with; while, on the contrary,
in the eyes of the station-keeper and the hostler, the stage-driver was a hero
—a great and shining dignitary, the world’s favorite son, the envy of the
people, the observed of the nations. When they spoke to him they received
his insolent silence meekly, and as being the natural and proper conduct of
so great a man; when he opened his lips they all hung on his words with
admiration (he never honored a particular individual with a remark, but
addressed it with a broad generality to the horses, the stables, the
surrounding country and the human underlings); when he discharged a
facetious insulting personality at a hostler, that hostler was happy for the
day; when he uttered his one jest—old as the hills, coarse, profane, witless,
and inflicted on the same audience, in the same language, every time his
coach drove up there—the varlets roared, and slapped their thighs, and
swore it was the best thing they’d ever heard in all their lives. And how they
would fly around when he wanted a basin of water, a gourd of the same, or
a light for his pipe!—but they would instantly insult a passenger if he so far
forgot himself as to crave a favor at their hands. They could do that sort of
insolence as well as the driver they copied it from—for, let it be borne in
mind, the overland driver had but little less contempt for his passengers
than he had for his hostlers.

The hostlers and station-keepers treated the really powerful conductor of
the coach merely with the best of what was their idea of civility, but the
driver was the only being they bowed down to and worshipped. How
admiringly they would gaze up at him in his high seat as he gloved himself
with lingering deliberation, while some happy hostler held the bunch of
reins aloft, and waited patiently for him to take it! And how they would
bombard him with glorifying ejaculations as he cracked his long whip and
went careering away.
The station buildings were long, low huts, made of sundried, mud-
colored bricks, laid up without mortar (adobes, the Spaniards call these
bricks, and Americans shorten it to ’dobies). The roofs, which had no slant
to them worth speaking of, were thatched and then sodded or covered with
a thick layer of earth, and from this sprung a pretty rank growth of weeds
and grass. It was the first time we had ever seen a man’s front yard on top
of his house. The building consisted of barns, stable-room for twelve or
fifteen horses, and a hut for an eating-room for passengers. This latter had
bunks in it for the station-keeper and a hostler or two. You could rest your
elbow on its eaves, and you had to bend in order to get in at the door. In
place of a window there was a square hole about large enough for a man to
crawl through, but this had no glass in it. There was no flooring, but the
ground was packed hard. There was no stove, but the fire-place served all
needful purposes. There were no shelves, no cupboards, no closets. In a
corner stood an open sack of flour, and nestling against its base were a
couple of black and venerable tin coffee-pots, a tin teapot, a little bag of
salt, and a side of bacon.
By the door of the station-keeper’s den, outside, was a tin wash-basin, on
the ground. Near it was a pail of water and a piece of yellow bar soap, and
from the eaves hung a hoary blue woolen shirt, significantly—but this latter
was the station-keeper’s private towel, and only two persons in all the party
might venture to use it—the stage-driver and the conductor. The latter
would not, from a sense of decency; the former would not, because he did
not choose to encourage the advances of a station-keeper. We had towels—
in the valise; they might as well have been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We
(and the conductor) used our handkerchiefs, and the driver his pantaloons
and sleeves. By the door, inside, was fastened a small old-fashioned
looking-glass frame, with two little fragments of the original mirror lodged
down in one corner of it. This arrangement afforded a pleasant double-

barreled portrait of you when you looked into it, with one half of your head
set up a couple of inches above the other half. From the glass frame hung
the half of a comb by a string—but if I had to describe that patriarch or die,
I believe I would order some sample coffins.

It had come down from Esau and Samson, and had been accumulating
hair ever since—along with certain impurities. In one corner of the room
stood three or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches of
ammunition. The station-men wore pantaloons of coarse, country-woven
stuff, and into the seat and the inside of the legs were sewed ample
additions of buckskin, to do duty in place of leggings, when the man rode
horseback—so the pants were half dull blue and half yellow, and
unspeakably picturesque. The pants were stuffed into the tops of high boots,
the heels whereof were armed with great Spanish spurs, whose little iron
clogs and chains jingled with every step. The man wore a huge beard and
mustachios, an old slouch hat, a blue woolen shirt, no suspenders, no vest,
no coat—in a leathern sheath in his belt, a great long “navy” revolver (slung
on right side, hammer to the front), and projecting from his boot a horn-
handled bowie-knife.

The furniture of the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The
rocking-chairs and sofas were not present, and never had been, but they
were represented by two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench four feet
long, and two empty candle-boxes. The table was a greasy board on stilts,
and the table-cloth and napkins had not come—and they were not looking
for them, either. A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and a tin pint cup,
were at each man’s place, and the driver had a queens-ware saucer that had
seen better days. Of course this duke sat at the head of the table. There was

one isolated piece of table furniture that bore about it a touching air of
grandeur in misfortune. This was the caster. It was German silver, and
crippled and rusty, but it was so preposterously out of place there that it was
suggestive of a tattered exiled king among barbarians, and the majesty of its
native position compelled respect even in its degradation.
There was only one cruet left, and that was a stopperless, fly-specked,
broken-necked thing, with two inches of vinegar in it, and a dozen
preserved flies with their heels up and looking sorry they had invested
there.

The station-keeper upended a disk of last week’s bread, of the shape and
size of an old-time cheese, and carved some slabs from it which were as
good as Nicholson pavement, and tenderer.
He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but only the experienced old
hands made out to eat it, for it was condemned army bacon which the
United States would not feed to its soldiers in the forts, and the stage
company had bought it cheap for the sustenance of their passengers and
employees. We may have found this condemned army bacon further out on

the plains than the section I am locating it in, but we found it—there is no
gainsaying that.
Then he poured for us a beverage which he called “Slumgullion,” and it
is hard to think he was not inspired when he named it. It really pretended to
be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it
to deceive the intelligent traveler.

He had no sugar and no milk—not even a spoon to stir the ingredients
with.
We could not eat the bread or the meat, nor drink the “slumgullion.” And
when I looked at that melancholy vinegar-cruet, I thought of the anecdote (a
very, very old one, even at that day) of the traveler who sat down to a table
which had nothing on it but a mackerel and a pot of mustard. He asked the
landlord if this was all. The landlord said:
“All! Why, thunder and lightning, I should think there was mackerel
enough there for six.”
“But I don’t like mackerel.”
“Oh—then help yourself to the mustard.”

In other days I had considered it a good, a very good, anecdote, but there
was a dismal plausibility about it, here, that took all the humor out of it.
Our breakfast was before us, but our teeth were idle.
I tasted and smelt, and said I would take coffee, I believed. The station-
boss stopped dead still, and glared at me speechless. At last, when he came
to, he turned away and said, as one who communes with himself upon a
matter too vast to grasp:
“Coffee! Well, if that don’t go clean ahead of me, I’m d——d!”

We could not eat, and there was no conversation among the hostlers and
herdsmen—we all sat at the same board. At least there was no conversation

further than a single hurried request, now and then, from one employee to
another. It was always in the same form, and always gruffly friendly. Its
western freshness and novelty startled me, at first, and interested me; but it
presently grew monotonous, and lost its charm. It was:
“Pass the bread, you son of a skunk!” No, I forget—skunk was not the
word; it seems to me it was still stronger than that; I know it was, in fact,
but it is gone from my memory, apparently. However, it is no matter—
probably it was too strong for print, anyway. It is the landmark in my
memory which tells me where I first encountered the vigorous new
vernacular of the occidental plains and mountains.
We gave up the breakfast, and paid our dollar apiece and went back to
our mail-bag bed in the coach, and found comfort in our pipes. Right here
we suffered the first diminution of our princely state. We left our six fine
horses and took six mules in their place. But they were wild Mexican
fellows, and a man had to stand at the head of each of them and hold him
fast while the driver gloved and got himself ready. And when at last he
grasped the reins and gave the word, the men sprung suddenly away from
the mules’ heads and the coach shot from the station as if it had issued from
a cannon. How the frantic animals did scamper! It was a fierce and furious
gallop—and the gait never altered for a moment till we reeled off ten or
twelve miles and swept up to the next collection of little station-huts and
stables.
So we flew along all day. At 2 P.M. the belt of timber that fringes the
North Platte and marks its windings through the vast level floor of the
Plains came in sight. At 4 P.M. we crossed a branch of the river, and at 5
P.M. we crossed the Platte itself, and landed at Fort Kearney, fifty-six hours
out from St. Joe—THREE HUNDRED MILES!
Now that was stage-coaching on the great overland, ten or twelve years
ago, when perhaps not more than ten men in America, all told, expected to
live to see a railroad follow that route to the Pacific. But the railroad is
there, now, and it pictures a thousand odd comparisons and contrasts in my
mind to read the following sketch, in the New York Times, of a recent trip
over almost the very ground I have been describing. I can scarcely
comprehend the new state of things:

“ACROSS THE CONTINENT.

“At 4.20 P.M., Sunday, we rolled out of the station at
Omaha, and started westward on our long jaunt. A couple of
hours out, dinner was announced—an “event” to those of us
who had yet to experience what it is to eat in one of
Pullman’s hotels on wheels; so, stepping into the car next
forward of our sleeping palace, we found ourselves in the
dining-car. It was a revelation to us, that first dinner on
Sunday. And though we continued to dine for four days, and
had as many breakfasts and suppers, our whole party never
ceased to admire the perfection of the arrangements, and the
marvelous results achieved. Upon tables covered with snowy
linen, and garnished with services of solid silver, Ethiop
waiters, flitting about in spotless white, placed as by magic
a repast at which Delmonico himself could have had no
occasion to blush; and, indeed, in some respects it would be
hard for that distinguished chef to match our menu; for, in
addition to all that ordinarily makes up a first-chop dinner,
had we not our antelope steak (the gormand who has not
experienced this—bah! what does he know of the feast of fat
things?) our delicious mountain-brook trout, and choice
fruits and berries, and (sauce piquant and unpurchasable!)
our sweet-scented, appetite-compelling air of the prairies?

“You may depend upon it, we all did justice to the good
things, and as we washed them down with bumpers of
sparkling Krug, whilst we sped along at the rate of thirty
miles an hour, agreed it was the fastest living we had ever
experienced. (We beat that, however, two days afterward
when we made twenty-seven miles in twenty-seven minutes,
while our Champagne glasses filled to the brim spilled not a
drop!) After dinner we repaired to our drawing-room car,
and, as it was Sabbath eve, intoned some of the grand old
hymns—“Praise God from whom,” etc.; “Shining Shore,”
“Coronation,” etc.—the voices of the men singers and of the
women singers blending sweetly in the evening air, while our
train, with its great, glaring Polyphemus eye, lighting up
long vistas of prairie, rushed into the night and the Wild.
Then to bed in luxurious couches, where we slept the sleep
of the just and only awoke the next morning (Monday) at
eight o’clock, to find ourselves at the crossing of the North
Platte, three hundred miles from Omaha—fifteen hours and
forty minutes out.”

CHAPTER V.

Another night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came, by
and by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses of
level greensward, bright sunlight, an impressive solitude utterly without
visible human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of such
amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed close at hand were
more than three mile away. We resumed undress uniform, climbed a-top of
the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side, shouted occasionally at our
frantic mules, merely to see them lay their ears back and scamper faster,
tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing away, and leveled an outlook
over the world-wide carpet about us for things new and strange to gaze at.
Even at this day it thrills me through and through to think of the life, the
gladness and the wild sense of freedom that used to make the blood dance
in my veins on those fine overland mornings!

Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prairie-dog villages,
the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I remember rightly, this latter was the
regular cayote (pronounced ky-o-te) of the farther deserts. And if it was, he
was not a pretty creature or respectable either, for I got well acquainted with
his race afterward, and can speak with confidence. The cayote is a long,
slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over
it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression
of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face,
with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking
expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is
always hungry.
He is always poor, out of luck and friendless. The meanest creatures
despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so
spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending a
threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it. And he is so homely!—so
scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. When he sees you he lifts
his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the
course he was pursuing, depresses his head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-
footed trot through the sage-brush, glancing over his shoulder at you, from
time to time, till he is about out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and
takes a deliberate survey of you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again—
another fifty and stop again; and finally the gray of his gliding body blends
with the gray of the sage-brush, and he disappears. All this is when you
make no demonstration against him; but if you do, he develops a livelier
interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels and puts such a deal
of real estate between himself and your weapon, that by the time you have
raised the hammer you see that you need a minie rifle, and by the time you
have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and by the time you have
“drawn a bead” on him you see well enough that nothing but an unusually
long-winded streak of lightning could reach him where he is now. But if
you start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy it ever so much—
especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of himself, and has been
brought up to think he knows something about speed.

The cayote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of his, and
every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his shoulder that will
fill that dog entirely full of encouragement and worldly ambition, and make
him lay his head still lower to the ground, and stretch his neck further to the
front, and pant more fiercely, and stick his tail out straighter behind, and
move his furious legs with a yet wilder frenzy, and leave a broader and
broader, and higher and denser cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and
marking his long wake across the level plain! And all this time the dog is
only a short twenty feet behind the cayote, and to save the soul of him he
cannot understand why it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; and he
begins to get aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how
gently the cayote glides along and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile;
and he grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has
been taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long,
calm, soft-footed trot is; and next he notices that he is getting fagged, and
that the cayote actually has to slacken speed a little to keep from running
away from him—and then that town-dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to
strain and weep and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach for
the cayote with concentrated and desperate energy. This “spurt” finds him
six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then,
in the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the cayote turns
and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it
which seems to say: “Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bub
—business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this
way all day”—and forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden

splitting of a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is
solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude!
It makes his head swim. He stops, and looks all around; climbs the
nearest sand-mound, and gazes into the distance; shakes his head
reflectively, and then, without a word, he turns and jogs along back to his
train, and takes up a humble position under the hindmost wagon, and feels
unspeakably mean, and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at half-mast for a
week. And for as much as a year after that, whenever there is a great hue
and cry after a cayote, that dog will merely glance in that direction without
emotion, and apparently observe to himself, “I believe I do not wish any of
the pie.”

The cayote lives chiefly in the most desolate and forbidding desert, along
with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit and the raven, and gets an uncertain and
precarious living, and earns it. He seems to subsist almost wholly on the

carcases of oxen, mules and horses that have dropped out of emigrant trains
and died, and upon windfalls of carrion, and occasional legacies of offal
bequeathed to him by white men who have been opulent enough to have
something better to butcher than condemned army bacon.
He will eat anything in the world that his first cousins, the desert-
frequenting tribes of Indians will, and they will eat anything they can bite. It
is a curious fact that these latter are the only creatures known to history who
will eat nitro-glycerine and ask for more if they survive.
The cayote of the deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains has a peculiarly
hard time of it, owing to the fact that his relations, the Indians, are just as
apt to be the first to detect a seductive scent on the desert breeze, and follow
the fragrance to the late ox it emanated from, as he is himself; and when
this occurs he has to content himself with sitting off at a little distance
watching those people strip off and dig out everything edible, and walk off
with it. Then he and the waiting ravens explore the skeleton and polish the
bones. It is considered that the cayote, and the obscene bird, and the Indian
of the desert, testify their blood kinship with each other in that they live
together in the waste places of the earth on terms of perfect confidence and
friendship, while hating all other creature and yearning to assist at their
funerals. He does not mind going a hundred miles to breakfast, and a
hundred and fifty to dinner, because he is sure to have three or four days
between meals, and he can just as well be traveling and looking at the
scenery as lying around doing nothing and adding to the burdens of his
parents.
We soon learned to recognize the sharp, vicious bark of the cayote as it
came across the murky plain at night to disturb our dreams among the mail-
sacks; and remembering his forlorn aspect and his hard fortune, made shift
to wish him the blessed novelty of a long day’s good luck and a limitless
larder the morrow.

CHAPTER VI.

Our new conductor (just shipped) had been without sleep for twenty
hours. Such a thing was very frequent. From St. Joseph, Missouri, to
Sacramento, California, by stage-coach, was nearly nineteen hundred miles,
and the trip was often made in fifteen days (the cars do it in four and a half,
now), but the time specified in the mail contracts, and required by the
schedule, was eighteen or nineteen days, if I remember rightly. This was to
make fair allowance for winter storms and snows, and other unavoidable
causes of detention. The stage company had everything under strict
discipline and good system. Over each two hundred and fifty miles of road
they placed an agent or superintendent, and invested him with great
authority. His beat or jurisdiction of two hundred and fifty miles was called
a “division.” He purchased horses, mules harness, and food for men and
beasts, and distributed these things among his stage stations, from time to
time, according to his judgment of what each station needed. He erected
station buildings and dug wells. He attended to the paying of the station-
keepers, hostlers, drivers and blacksmiths, and discharged them whenever
he chose. He was a very, very great man in his “division”—a kind of Grand
Mogul, a Sultan of the Indies, in whose presence common men were
modest of speech and manner, and in the glare of whose greatness even the
dazzling stage-driver dwindled to a penny dip. There were about eight of
these kings, all told, on the overland route.

Next in rank and importance to the division-agent came the “conductor.”
His beat was the same length as the agent’s—two hundred and fifty miles.
He sat with the driver, and (when necessary) rode that fearful distance,
night and day, without other rest or sleep than what he could get perched
thus on top of the flying vehicle. Think of it! He had absolute charge of the
mails, express matter, passengers and stage-coach, until he delivered them
to the next conductor, and got his receipt for them.
Consequently he had to be a man of intelligence, decision and
considerable executive ability. He was usually a quiet, pleasant man, who
attended closely to his duties, and was a good deal of a gentleman. It was
not absolutely necessary that the division-agent should be a gentleman, and
occasionally he wasn’t. But he was always a general in administrative
ability, and a bull-dog in courage and determination—otherwise the
chieftainship over the lawless underlings of the overland service would

never in any instance have been to him anything but an equivalent for a
month of insolence and distress and a bullet and a coffin at the end of it.
There were about sixteen or eighteen conductors on the overland, for there
was a daily stage each way, and a conductor on every stage.
Next in real and official rank and importance, after the conductor, came
my delight, the driver—next in real but not in apparent importance—for we
have seen that in the eyes of the common herd the driver was to the
conductor as an admiral is to the captain of the flag-ship. The driver’s beat
was pretty long, and his sleeping-time at the stations pretty short,
sometimes; and so, but for the grandeur of his position his would have been
a sorry life, as well as a hard and a wearing one. We took a new driver every
day or every night (for they drove backward and forward over the same
piece of road all the time), and therefore we never got as well acquainted
with them as we did with the conductors; and besides, they would have
been above being familiar with such rubbish as passengers, anyhow, as a
general thing. Still, we were always eager to get a sight of each and every
new driver as soon as the watch changed, for each and every day we were
either anxious to get rid of an unpleasant one, or loath to part with a driver
we had learned to like and had come to be sociable and friendly with. And
so the first question we asked the conductor whenever we got to where we
were to exchange drivers, was always, “Which is him?” The grammar was
faulty, maybe, but we could not know, then, that it would go into a book
some day. As long as everything went smoothly, the overland driver was
well enough situated, but if a fellow driver got sick suddenly it made
trouble, for the coach must go on, and so the potentate who was about to
climb down and take a luxurious rest after his long night’s siege in the
midst of wind and rain and darkness, had to stay where he was and do the
sick man’s work. Once, in the Rocky Mountains, when I found a driver
sound asleep on the box, and the mules going at the usual break-neck pace,
the conductor said never mind him, there was no danger, and he was doing
double duty—had driven seventy-five miles on one coach, and was now
going back over it on this without rest or sleep. A hundred and fifty miles of
holding back of six vindictive mules and keeping them from climbing the
trees! It sounds incredible, but I remember the statement well enough.
The station-keepers, hostlers, etc., were low, rough characters, as already
described; and from western Nebraska to Nevada a considerable sprinkling
of them might be fairly set down as outlaws—fugitives from justice,

criminals whose best security was a section of country which was without
law and without even the pretence of it. When the “division- agent” issued
an order to one of these parties he did it with the full understanding that he
might have to enforce it with a navy six-shooter, and so he always went
“fixed” to make things go along smoothly.
Now and then a division-agent was really obliged to shoot a hostler
through the head to teach him some simple matter that he could have taught
him with a club if his circumstances and surroundings had been different.
But they were snappy, able men, those division-agents, and when they tried
to teach a subordinate anything, that subordinate generally “got it through
his head.”

A great portion of this vast machinery—these hundreds of men and
coaches, and thousands of mules and horses—was in the hands of Mr. Ben
Holliday. All the western half of the business was in his hands. This
reminds me of an incident of Palestine travel which is pertinent here, so I
will transfer it just in the language in which I find it set down in my Holy
Land note-book:

No doubt everybody has heard of Ben Holliday—a man of
prodigious energy, who used to send mails and passengers

flying across the continent in his overland stage-coaches like
a very whirlwind—two thousand long miles in fifteen days
and a half, by the watch! But this fragment of history is not
about Ben Holliday, but about a young New York boy by the
name of Jack, who traveled with our small party of pilgrims
in the Holy Land (and who had traveled to California in Mr.
Holliday’s overland coaches three years before, and had by
no means forgotten it or lost his gushing admiration of Mr.
H.) Aged nineteen. Jack was a good boy—a good-hearted
and always well-meaning boy, who had been reared in the
city of New York, and although he was bright and knew a
great many useful things, his Scriptural education had been
a good deal neglected—to such a degree, indeed, that all
Holy Land history was fresh and new to him, and all Bible
names mysteries that had never disturbed his virgin ear.
Also in our party was an elderly pilgrim who was the
reverse of Jack, in that he was learned in the Scriptures and
an enthusiast concerning them. He was our encyclopedia,
and we were never tired of listening to his speeches, nor he
of making them. He never passed a celebrated locality, from
Bashan to Bethlehem, without illuminating it with an
oration. One day, when camped near the ruins of Jericho, he
burst forth with something like this:
“Jack, do you see that range of mountains over yonder
that bounds the Jordan valley? The mountains of Moab,
Jack! Think of it, my boy—the actual mountains of Moab—
renowned in Scripture history! We are actually standing face
to face with those illustrious crags and peaks—and for all
we know” [dropping his voice impressively], “our eyes may
be resting at this very moment upon the spot WHERE LIES
THE MYSTERIOUS GRAVE OF MOSES! Think of it, Jack!”
“Moses who?” (falling inflection).

“Moses who! Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—
you ought to be ashamed of such criminal ignorance. Why,
Moses, the great guide, soldier, poet, lawgiver of ancient
Israel! Jack, from this spot where we stand, to Egypt,
stretches a fearful desert three hundred miles in extent—and
across that desert that wonderful man brought the children
of Israel!—guiding them with unfailing sagacity for forty
years over the sandy desolation and among the obstructing
rocks and hills, and landed them at last, safe and sound,
within sight of this very spot; and where we now stand they
entered the Promised Land with anthems of rejoicing! It was
a wonderful, wonderful thing to do, Jack! Think of it!”
“Forty years? Only three hundred miles? Humph! Ben
Holliday would have fetched them through in thirty-six
hours!”
The boy meant no harm. He did not know that he had said
anything that was wrong or irreverent. And so no one
scolded him or felt offended with him—and nobody could
but some ungenerous spirit incapable of excusing the
heedless blunders of a boy.

At noon on the fifth day out, we arrived at the “Crossing of the South
Platte,” alias “Julesburg,” alias “Overland City,” four hundred and seventy
miles from St. Joseph—the strangest, quaintest, funniest frontier town that
our untraveled eyes had ever stared at and been astonished with.

CHAPTER VII.

It did seem strange enough to see a town again after what appeared to us
such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless
solitude! We tumbled out into the busy street feeling like meteoric people
crumbled off the corner of some other world, and wakened up suddenly in
this. For an hour we took as much interest in Overland City as if we had
never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to spare was because
we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous affair, called a “mud-
wagon”) and transfer our freight of mails.
Presently we got under way again. We came to the shallow, yellow,
muddy South Platte, with its low banks and its scattering flat sand-bars and
pigmy islands—a melancholy stream straggling through the centre of the
enormous flat plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with the
naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on either bank.
The Platte was “up,” they said—which made me wish I could see it when it
was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier. They said it was a
dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands were liable to
swallow up horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford it.
But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once or twice in
midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands so threateningly that we
half believed we had dreaded and avoided the sea all our lives to be
shipwrecked in a “mud-wagon” in the middle of a desert at last. But we
dragged through and sped away toward the setting sun.

Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred and fifty miles
from St. Joseph, our mud-wagon broke down. We were to be delayed five
or six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invitation, and joined a party
who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport galloping over
the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our part of the hunt
ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo bull chased the
passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook his horse and took
to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the matter for some twenty-four
hours, but at last he began to soften little by little, and finally he said:

“Well, it was not funny, and there was no sense in those gawks making
themselves so facetious over it. I tell you I was angry in earnest for awhile.
I should have shot that long gangly lubber they called Hank, if I could have
done it without crippling six or seven other people—but of course I
couldn’t, the old ‘Allen’s’ so confounded comprehensive. I wish those
loafers had been up in the tree; they wouldn’t have wanted to laugh so. If I
had had a horse worth a cent—but no, the minute he saw that buffalo bull

wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised straight up in the air and stood on
his heels. The saddle began to slip, and I took him round the neck and laid
close to him, and began to pray. Then he came down and stood up on the
other end awhile, and the bull actually stopped pawing sand and bellowing
to contemplate the inhuman spectacle.
“Then the bull made a pass at him and uttered a bellow that sounded
perfectly frightful, it was so close to me, and that seemed to literally
prostrate my horse’s reason, and make a raving distracted maniac of him,
and I wish I may die if he didn’t stand on his head for a quarter of a minute
and shed tears. He was absolutely out of his mind—he was, as sure as truth
itself, and he really didn’t know what he was doing. Then the bull came
charging at us, and my horse dropped down on all fours and took a fresh
start—and then for the next ten minutes he would actually throw one hand-
spring after another so fast that the bull began to get unsettled, too, and
didn’t know where to start in—and so he stood there sneezing, and
shovelling dust over his back, and bellowing every now and then, and
thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar circus horse for breakfast,
certain. Well, I was first out on his neck—the horse’s, not the bull’s—and
then underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head up, and
sometimes heels—but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be ripping
and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you might say.
Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us and brought away some of my
horse’s tail (I suppose, but do not know, being pretty busy at the time), but
something made him hungry for solitude and suggested to him to get up and
hunt for it.

“And then you ought to have seen that spider legged old skeleton go! and
you ought to have seen the bull cut out after him, too—head down, tongue
out, tail up, bellowing like everything, and actually mowing down the
weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a whirlwind!
By George, it was a hot race! I and the saddle were back on the rump, and I
had the bridle in my teeth and holding on to the pommel with both hands.
First we left the dogs behind; then we passed a jackass rabbit; then we
overtook a cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when the rotten girth let
go and threw me about thirty yards off to the left, and as the saddle went
down over the horse’s rump he gave it a lift with his heels that sent it more
than four hundred yards up in the air, I wish I may die in a minute if he
didn’t. I fell at the foot of the only solitary tree there was in nine counties
adjacent (as any creature could see with the naked eye), and the next second
I had hold of the bark with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next
second after that I was astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck
in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now, if he
did not think of one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very
seriously. There was a possibility that the bull might not think of it, but
there were greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I would
do in case he did. It was a little over forty feet to the ground from where I
sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from the pommel of my saddle—”
“Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with you?”
“Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you talk. Of course I didn’t.
No man could do that. It fell in the tree when it came down.”
“Oh—exactly.”
“Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end of it to the limb. It
was the very best green raw-hide, and capable of sustaining tons. I made a
slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it down to see the length. It
reached down twenty-two feet—half way to the ground. I then loaded every
barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt satisfied. I said to myself, if
he never thinks of that one thing that I dread, all right—but if he does, all
right anyhow—I am fixed for him. But don’t you know that the very thing a
man dreads is the thing that always happens? Indeed it is so. I watched the
bull, now, with anxiety—anxiety which no one can conceive of who has not

been in such a situation and felt that at any moment death might come.
Presently a thought came into the bull’s eye. I knew it! said I—if my nerve
fails now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded, he started in
to climb the tree—”
“What, the bull?”
“Of course—who else?”
“But a bull can’t climb a tree.”

“He can’t, can’t he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a
bull try?”
“No! I never dreamt of such a thing.”
“Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then? Because you
never saw a thing done, is that any reason why it can’t be done?”
“Well, all right—go on. What did you do?”
“The bull started up, and got along well for about ten feet, then slipped
and slid back. I breathed easier. He tried it again—got up a little higher—
slipped again. But he came at it once more, and this time he was careful. He
got gradually higher and higher, and my spirits went down more and more.
Up he came—an inch at a time—with his eyes hot, and his tongue hanging
out. Higher and higher—hitched his foot over the stump of a limb, and
looked up, as much as to say, ‘You are my meat, friend.’ Up again—higher
and higher, and getting more excited the closer he got. He was within ten
feet of me! I took a long breath,—and then said I, ‘It is now or never.’ I had
the coil of the lariat all ready; I paid it out slowly, till it hung right over his
head; all of a sudden I let go of the slack, and the slipnoose fell fairly round
his neck! Quicker than lightning I out with the Allen and let him have it in
the face. It was an awful roar, and must have scared the bull out of his
senses. When the smoke cleared away, there he was, dangling in the air,
twenty foot from the ground, and going out of one convulsion into another
faster than you could count! I didn’t stop to count, anyhow—I shinned
down the tree and shot for home.”
“Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it?”
“I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if it isn’t.”
“Well, we can’t refuse to believe it, and we don’t. But if there were some
proofs—”
“Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?”
“No.”
“Did I bring back my horse?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see the bull again?”
“No.”

“Well, then, what more do you want? I never saw anybody as particular
as you are about a little thing like that.”
I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only missed it by the
skin of his teeth. This episode reminds me of an incident of my brief
sojourn in Siam, years afterward. The European citizens of a town in the
neighborhood of Bangkok had a prodigy among them by the name of
Eckert, an Englishman—a person famous for the number, ingenuity and
imposing magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating his most
celebrated falsehoods, and always trying to “draw him out” before
strangers; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he was invited to the house
where I was visiting, but nothing could seduce him into a specimen lie. One
day a planter named Bascom, an influential man, and a proud and
sometimes irascible one, invited me to ride over with him and call on
Eckert. As we jogged along, said he:
“Now, do you know where the fault lies? It lies in putting Eckert on his
guard. The minute the boys go to pumping at Eckert he knows perfectly
well what they are after, and of course he shuts up his shell. Anybody might
know he would. But when we get there, we must play him finer than that.
Let him shape the conversation to suit himself—let him drop it or change it
whenever he wants to. Let him see that nobody is trying to draw him out.
Just let him have his own way. He will soon forget himself and begin to
grind out lies like a mill. Don’t get impatient—just keep quiet, and let me
play him. I will make him lie. It does seem to me that the boys must be
blind to overlook such an obvious and simple trick as that.”
Eckert received us heartily—a pleasant-spoken, gentle-mannered
creature. We sat in the veranda an hour, sipping English ale, and talking
about the king, and the sacred white elephant, the Sleeping Idol, and all
manner of things; and I noticed that my comrade never led the conversation
himself or shaped it, but simply followed Eckert’s lead, and betrayed no
solicitude and no anxiety about anything. The effect was shortly
perceptible. Eckert began to grow communicative; he grew more and more
at his ease, and more and more talkative and sociable. Another hour passed
in the same way, and then all of a sudden Eckert said:
“Oh, by the way! I came near forgetting. I have got a thing here to
astonish you. Such a thing as neither you nor any other man ever heard of—

I’ve got a cat that will eat cocoanut! Common green cocoanut—and not
only eat the meat, but drink the milk. It is so—I’ll swear to it.”
A quick glance from Bascom—a glance that I understood—then:
“Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a thing. Man, it is
impossible.”
“I knew you would say it. I’ll fetch the cat.”
He went in the house. Bascom said:
“There—what did I tell you? Now, that is the way to handle Eckert. You
see, I have petted him along patiently, and put his suspicions to sleep. I am
glad we came. You tell the boys about it when you go back. Cat eat a
cocoanut—oh, my! Now, that is just his way, exactly—he will tell the
absurdest lie, and trust to luck to get out of it again.
“Cat eat a cocoanut—the innocent fool!”

Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough.
Bascom smiled. Said he:
“I’ll hold the cat—you bring a cocoanut.”
Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces. Bascom smuggled a
wink to me, and proffered a slice of the fruit to puss. She snatched it,
swallowed it ravenously, and asked for more!

We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart. At least I was silent,
though Bascom cuffed his horse and cursed him a good deal,
notwithstanding the horse was behaving well enough. When I branched off
homeward, Bascom said:
“Keep the horse till morning. And—you need not speak of this—
foolishness to the boys.”

CHAPTER VIII.

In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and
watching for the “pony-rider”—the fleet messenger who sped across the
continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred
miles in eight days! Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh and
blood to do! The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, brimful of
spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the day or night his watch
came on, and no matter whether it was winter or summer, raining, snowing,
hailing, or sleeting, or whether his “beat” was a level straight road or a
crazy trail over mountain crags and precipices, or whether it led through
peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with hostile Indians, he must be
always ready to leap into the saddle and be off like the wind! There was no
idling-time for a pony-rider on duty. He rode fifty miles without stopping,
by daylight, moonlight, starlight, or through the blackness of darkness—just
as it happened. He rode a splendid horse that was born for a racer and fed
and lodged like a gentleman; kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and
then, as he came crashing up to the station where stood two men holding
fast a fresh, impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in
the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and were out of sight
before the spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look. Both rider and
horse went “flying light.” The rider’s dress was thin, and fitted close; he
wore a “round-about,” and a skull-cap, and tucked his pantaloons into his
boot-tops like a race-rider. He carried no arms—he carried nothing that was
not absolutely necessary, for even the postage on his literary freight was
worth five dollars a letter.

He got but little frivolous correspondence to carry—his bag had business
letters in it, mostly. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight, too.
He wore a little wafer of a racing-saddle, and no visible blanket. He wore
light shoes, or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets strapped under the
rider’s thighs would each hold about the bulk of a child’s primer. They held
many and many an important business chapter and newspaper letter, but
these were written on paper as airy and thin as gold-leaf, nearly, and thus
bulk and weight were economized. The stage-coach traveled about a
hundred to a hundred and twenty-five miles a day (twenty-four hours), the
pony-rider about two hundred and fifty. There were about eighty pony-
riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long,
scattering procession from Missouri to California, forty flying eastward,
and forty toward the west, and among them making four hundred gallant
horses earn a stirring livelihood and see a deal of scenery every single day
in the year.
We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to see a pony-rider,
but somehow or other all that passed us and all that met us managed to

streak by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift
phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out of the
windows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and would
see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims:
“HERE HE COMES!”
Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away
across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the
sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so!
In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising
and falling—sweeping toward us nearer and nearer—growing more and
more distinct, more and more sharply defined—nearer and still nearer, and
the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear—another instant a whoop
and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider’s hand, but no reply,
and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging away like a
belated fragment of a storm!

So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for the
flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail-sack after the
vision had flashed by and disappeared, we might have doubted whether we
had seen any actual horse and man at all, maybe.
We rattled through Scott’s Bluffs Pass, by and by. It was along here
somewhere that we first came across genuine and unmistakable alkali water
in the road, and we cordially hailed it as a first-class curiosity, and a thing to

be mentioned with eclat in letters to the ignorant at home. This water gave
the road a soapy appearance, and in many places the ground looked as if it
had been whitewashed. I think the strange alkali water excited us as much
as any wonder we had come upon yet, and I know we felt very complacent
and conceited, and better satisfied with life after we had added it to our list
of things which we had seen and some other people had not. In a small way
we were the same sort of simpletons as those who climb unnecessarily the
perilous peaks of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, and derive no pleasure
from it except the reflection that it isn’t a common experience. But once in
a while one of those parties trips and comes darting down the long
mountain-crags in a sitting posture, making the crusted snow smoke behind
him, flitting from bench to bench, and from terrace to terrace, jarring the
earth where he strikes, and still glancing and flitting on again, sticking an
iceberg into himself every now and then, and tearing his clothes, snatching
at things to save himself, taking hold of trees and fetching them along with
him, roots and all, starting little rocks now and then, then big boulders, then
acres of ice and snow and patches of forest, gathering and still gathering as
he goes, adding and still adding to his massed and sweeping grandeur as he
nears a three thousand-foot precipice, till at last he waves his hat
magnificently and rides into eternity on the back of a raging and tossing
avalanche!

This is all very fine, but let us not be carried away by excitement, but ask
calmly, how does this person feel about it in his cooler moments next day,
with six or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on top of him?
We crossed the sand hills near the scene of the Indian mail robbery and
massacre of 1856, wherein the driver and conductor perished, and also all
the passengers but one, it was supposed; but this must have been a mistake,
for at different times afterward on the Pacific coast I was personally
acquainted with a hundred and thirty-three or four people who were
wounded during that massacre, and barely escaped with their lives. There
was no doubt of the truth of it—I had it from their own lips. One of these
parties told me that he kept coming across arrow-heads in his system for
nearly seven years after the massacre; and another of them told me that he
was struck so literally full of arrows that after the Indians were gone and he
could raise up and examine himself, he could not restrain his tears, for his
clothes were completely ruined.
The most trustworthy tradition avers, however, that only one man, a
person named Babbitt, survived the massacre, and he was desperately
wounded. He dragged himself on his hands and knee (for one leg was
broken) to a station several miles away. He did it during portions of two
nights, lying concealed one day and part of another, and for more than forty
hours suffering unimaginable anguish from hunger, thirst and bodily pain.
The Indians robbed the coach of everything it contained, including quite an
amount of treasure.

CHAPTER IX.

We passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh morning out we
found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow
(apparently) looming vast and solitary—a deep, dark, rich indigo blue in
hue, so portentously did the old colossus frown under his beetling brows of
storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in reality, but he only
seemed removed a little beyond the low ridge at our right. We breakfasted
at Horse-Shoe Station, six hundred and seventy-six miles out from St.
Joseph. We had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during the
afternoon we passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great discomfort all the
time we were in the neighborhood, being aware that many of the trees we
dashed by at arm’s length concealed a lurking Indian or two. During the
preceding night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet through the pony-
rider’s jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because pony-riders were
not allowed to stop and inquire into such things except when killed. As long
as they had life enough left in them they had to stick to the horse and ride,
even if the Indians had been waiting for them a week, and were entirely out
of patience. About two hours and a half before we arrived at Laparelle
Station, the keeper in charge of it had fired four times at an Indian, but he
said with an injured air that the Indian had “skipped around so’s to spile
everything—and ammunition’s blamed skurse, too.” The most natural
inference conveyed by his manner of speaking was, that in “skipping
around,” the Indian had taken an unfair advantage.
The coach we were in had a neat hole through its front—a reminiscence
of its last trip through this region. The bullet that made it wounded the
driver slightly, but he did not mind it much. He said the place to keep a man
“huffy” was down on the Southern Overland, among the Apaches, before
the company moved the stage line up on the northern route. He said the
Apaches used to annoy him all the time down there, and that he came as

near as anything to starving to death in the midst of abundance, because
they kept him so leaky with bullet holes that he “couldn’t hold his vittles.”
This person’s statements were not generally believed.

We shut the blinds down very tightly that first night in the hostile Indian
country, and lay on our arms. We slept on them some, but most of the time
we only lay on them. We did not talk much, but kept quiet and listened. It
was an inky-black night, and occasionally rainy. We were among woods and
rocks, hills and gorges—so shut in, in fact, that when we peeped through a
chink in a curtain, we could discern nothing. The driver and conductor on
top were still, too, or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the
way of men in the midst of invisible dangers. We listened to rain-drops
pattering on the roof; and the grinding of the wheels through the muddy
gravel; and the low wailing of the wind; and all the time we had that absurd
sense upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle,
the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the
jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the
grinding of the wheels. We listened a long time, with intent faculties and
bated breath; every time one of us would relax, and draw a long sigh of

relief and start to say something, a comrade would be sure to utter a sudden
“Hark!” and instantly the experimenter was rigid and listening again. So the
tiresome minutes and decades of minutes dragged away, until at last our
tense forms filmed over with a dulled consciousness, and we slept, if one
might call such a condition by so strong a name—for it was a sleep set with
a hair-trigger. It was a sleep seething and teeming with a weird and
distressful confusion of shreds and fag-ends of dreams—a sleep that was a
chaos. Presently, dreams and sleep and the sullen hush of the night were
startled by a ringing report, and cloven by such a long, wild, agonizing
shriek! Then we heard—ten steps from the stage—
“Help! help! help!” [It was our driver’s voice.]
“Kill him! Kill him like a dog!”
“I’m being murdered! Will no man lend me a pistol?”
“Look out! head him off! head him off!”
[Two pistol shots; a confusion of voices and the trampling of many feet,
as if a crowd were closing and surging together around some object; several
heavy, dull blows, as with a club; a voice that said appealingly, “Don’t,
gentlemen, please don’t—I’m a dead man!” Then a fainter groan, and
another blow, and away sped the stage into the darkness, and left the grisly
mystery behind us.]
What a startle it was! Eight seconds would amply cover the time it
occupied—maybe even five would do it. We only had time to plunge at a
curtain and unbuckle and unbutton part of it in an awkward and hindering
flurry, when our whip cracked sharply overhead, and we went rumbling and
thundering away, down a mountain “grade.”
We fed on that mystery the rest of the night—what was left of it, for it
was waning fast. It had to remain a present mystery, for all we could get
from the conductor in answer to our hails was something that sounded,
through the clatter of the wheels, like “Tell you in the morning!”
So we lit our pipes and opened the corner of a curtain for a chimney, and
lay there in the dark, listening to each other’s story of how he first felt and
how many thousand Indians he first thought had hurled themselves upon us,
and what his remembrance of the subsequent sounds was, and the order of
their occurrence. And we theorized, too, but there was never a theory that

would account for our driver’s voice being out there, nor yet account for his
Indian murderers talking such good English, if they were Indians.
So we chatted and smoked the rest of the night comfortably away, our
boding anxiety being somehow marvelously dissipated by the real presence
of something to be anxious about.
We never did get much satisfaction about that dark occurrence. All that
we could make out of the odds and ends of the information we gathered in
the morning, was that the disturbance occurred at a station; that we changed
drivers there, and that the driver that got off there had been talking roughly
about some of the outlaws that infested the region (“for there wasn’t a man
around there but had a price on his head and didn’t dare show himself in the
settlements,” the conductor said); he had talked roughly about these
characters, and ought to have “drove up there with his pistol cocked and
ready on the seat alongside of him, and begun business himself, because
any softy would know they would be laying for him.”
That was all we could gather, and we could see that neither the conductor
nor the new driver were much concerned about the matter. They plainly had
little respect for a man who would deliver offensive opinions of people and
then be so simple as to come into their presence unprepared to “back his
judgment,” as they pleasantly phrased the killing of any fellow-being who
did not like said opinions. And likewise they plainly had a contempt for the
man’s poor discretion in venturing to rouse the wrath of such utterly
reckless wild beasts as those outlaws—and the conductor added:
“I tell you it’s as much as Slade himself wants to do!”
This remark created an entire revolution in my curiosity. I cared nothing
now about the Indians, and even lost interest in the murdered driver. There
was such magic in that name, SLADE! Day or night, now, I stood always
ready to drop any subject in hand, to listen to something new about Slade
and his ghastly exploits. Even before we got to Overland City, we had
begun to hear about Slade and his “division” (for he was a “division-agent”)
on the Overland; and from the hour we had left Overland City we had heard
drivers and conductors talk about only three things—“Californy,” the
Nevada silver mines, and this desperado Slade. And a deal the most of the
talk was about Slade. We had gradually come to have a realizing sense of
the fact that Slade was a man whose heart and hands and soul were steeped
in the blood of offenders against his dignity; a man who awfully avenged all

injuries, affront, insults or slights, of whatever kind—on the spot if he
could, years afterward if lack of earlier opportunity compelled it; a man
whose hate tortured him day and night till vengeance appeased it—and not
an ordinary vengeance either, but his enemy’s absolute death—nothing less;
a man whose face would light up with a terrible joy when he surprised a foe
and had him at a disadvantage. A high and efficient servant of the Overland,
an outlaw among outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once
the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that
inhabited the savage fastnesses of the mountains.

CHAPTER X.

Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and conductors had been
about this man Slade, ever since the day before we reached Julesburg. In
order that the eastern reader may have a clear conception of what a Rocky
Mountain desperado is, in his highest state of development, I will reduce all
this mass of overland gossip to one straightforward narrative, and present it
in the following shape:
Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At about twenty-six years
of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled the country. At St. Joseph,
Missouri, he joined one of the early California-bound emigrant trains, and
was given the post of train-master. One day on the plains he had an angry
dispute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their revolvers. But
the driver was the quicker artist, and had his weapon cocked first. So Slade
said it was a pity to waste life on so small a matter, and proposed that the
pistols be thrown on the ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The
unsuspecting driver agreed, and threw down his pistol—whereupon Slade
laughed at his simplicity, and shot him dead!
He made his escape, and lived a wild life for awhile, dividing his time
between fighting Indians and avoiding an Illinois sheriff, who had been sent
to arrest him for his first murder. It is said that in one Indian battle he killed
three savages with his own hand, and afterward cut their ears off and sent
them, with his compliments, to the chief of the tribe.

Slade soon gained a name for fearless resolution, and this was sufficient
merit to procure for him the important post of overland division-agent at
Julesburg, in place of Mr. Jules, removed. For some time previously, the
company’s horses had been frequently stolen, and the coaches delayed, by
gangs of outlaws, who were wont to laugh at the idea of any man’s having
the temerity to resent such outrages. Slade resented them promptly.
The outlaws soon found that the new agent was a man who did not fear
anything that breathed the breath of life. He made short work of all
offenders. The result was that delays ceased, the company’s property was
let alone, and no matter what happened or who suffered, Slade’s coaches
went through, every time! True, in order to bring about this wholesome
change, Slade had to kill several men—some say three, others say four, and
others six—but the world was the richer for their loss. The first prominent
difficulty he had was with the ex-agent Jules, who bore the reputation of

being a reckless and desperate man himself. Jules hated Slade for
supplanting him, and a good fair occasion for a fight was all he was waiting
for. By and by Slade dared to employ a man whom Jules had once
discharged. Next, Slade seized a team of stage-horses which he accused
Jules of having driven off and hidden somewhere for his own use. War was
declared, and for a day or two the two men walked warily about the streets,
seeking each other, Jules armed with a double-barreled shot gun, and Slade
with his history-creating revolver. Finally, as Slade stepped into a store
Jules poured the contents of his gun into him from behind the door. Slade
was pluck, and Jules got several bad pistol wounds in return.

Then both men fell, and were carried to their respective lodgings, both
swearing that better aim should do deadlier work next time. Both were

bedridden a long time, but Jules got to his feet first, and gathering his
possessions together, packed them on a couple of mules, and fled to the
Rocky Mountains to gather strength in safety against the day of reckoning.
For many months he was not seen or heard of, and was gradually dropped
out of the remembrance of all save Slade himself. But Slade was not the
man to forget him. On the contrary, common report said that Slade kept a
reward standing for his capture, dead or alive!
After awhile, seeing that Slade’s energetic administration had restored
peace and order to one of the worst divisions of the road, the overland stage
company transferred him to the Rocky Ridge division in the Rocky
Mountains, to see if he could perform a like miracle there. It was the very
paradise of outlaws and desperadoes. There was absolutely no semblance of
law there. Violence was the rule. Force was the only recognized authority.
The commonest misunderstandings were settled on the spot with the
revolver or the knife. Murders were done in open day, and with sparkling
frequency, and nobody thought of inquiring into them. It was considered
that the parties who did the killing had their private reasons for it; for other
people to meddle would have been looked upon as indelicate. After a
murder, all that Rocky Mountain etiquette required of a spectator was, that
he should help the gentleman bury his game—otherwise his churlishness
would surely be remembered against him the first time he killed a man
himself and needed a neighborly turn in interring him.
Slade took up his residence sweetly and peacefully in the midst of this
hive of horse-thieves and assassins, and the very first time one of them
aired his insolent swaggerings in his presence he shot him dead! He began a
raid on the outlaws, and in a singularly short space of time he had
completely stopped their depredations on the stage stock, recovered a large
number of stolen horses, killed several of the worst desperadoes of the
district, and gained such a dread ascendancy over the rest that they
respected him, admired him, feared him, obeyed him! He wrought the same
marvelous change in the ways of the community that had marked his
administration at Overland City. He captured two men who had stolen
overland stock, and with his own hands he hanged them. He was supreme
judge in his district, and he was jury and executioner likewise—and not
only in the case of offences against his employers, but against passing
emigrants as well. On one occasion some emigrants had their stock lost or
stolen, and told Slade, who chanced to visit their camp. With a single

companion he rode to a ranch, the owners of which he suspected, and
opening the door, commenced firing, killing three, and wounding the fourth.
From a bloodthirstily interesting little Montana book.—[“The Vigilantes
of Montana,” by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale.]—I take this paragraph:

“While on the road, Slade held absolute sway. He would
ride down to a station, get into a quarrel, turn the house out
of windows, and maltreat the occupants most cruelly. The
unfortunates had no means of redress, and were compelled
to recuperate as best they could.”

On one of these occasions, it is said he killed the father of
the fine little half-breed boy Jemmy, whom he adopted, and
who lived with his widow after his execution. Stories of
Slade’s hanging men, and of innumerable assaults,
shootings, stabbings and beatings, in which he was a
principal actor, form part of the legends of the stage line. As
for minor quarrels and shootings, it is absolutely certain
that a minute history of Slade’s life would be one long record
of such practices.
“The Vigilantes of Montana” by Prof. Thomas J.
Dimsdale

Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy revolver. The legends say
that one morning at Rocky Ridge, when he was feeling comfortable, he saw
a man approaching who had offended him some days before—observe the
fine memory he had for matters like that—and, “Gentlemen,” said Slade,
drawing, “it is a good twenty-yard shot—I’ll clip the third button on his
coat!” Which he did. The bystanders all admired it. And they all attended
the funeral, too.
On one occasion a man who kept a little whisky-shelf at the station did
something which angered Slade—and went and made his will. A day or two
afterward Slade came in and called for some brandy. The man reached
under the counter (ostensibly to get a bottle—possibly to get something
else), but Slade smiled upon him that peculiarly bland and satisfied smile of
his which the neighbors had long ago learned to recognize as a death-
warrant in disguise, and told him to “none of that!—pass out the high-
priced article.” So the poor bar-keeper had to turn his back and get the high-
priced brandy from the shelf; and when he faced around again he was
looking into the muzzle of Slade’s pistol. “And the next instant,” added my
informant, impressively, “he was one of the deadest men that ever lived.”

The stage-drivers and conductors told us that sometimes Slade would
leave a hated enemy wholly unmolested, unnoticed and unmentioned, for

weeks together—had done it once or twice at any rate. And some said they
believed he did it in order to lull the victims into unwatchfulness, so that he
could get the advantage of them, and others said they believed he saved up
an enemy that way, just as a schoolboy saves up a cake, and made the
pleasure go as far as it would by gloating over the anticipation. One of these
cases was that of a Frenchman who had offended Slade. To the surprise of
everybody Slade did not kill him on the spot, but let him alone for a
considerable time. Finally, however, he went to the Frenchman’s house very
late one night, knocked, and when his enemy opened the door, shot him
dead—pushed the corpse inside the door with his foot, set the house on fire
and burned up the dead man, his widow and three children! I heard this
story from several different people, and they evidently believed what they
were saying. It may be true, and it may not. “Give a dog a bad name,” etc.
Slade was captured, once, by a party of men who intended to lynch him.
They disarmed him, and shut him up in a strong log-house, and placed a
guard over him. He prevailed on his captors to send for his wife, so that he
might have a last interview with her. She was a brave, loving, spirited
woman. She jumped on a horse and rode for life and death. When she
arrived they let her in without searching her, and before the door could be
closed she whipped out a couple of revolvers, and she and her lord marched
forth defying the party. And then, under a brisk fire, they mounted double
and galloped away unharmed!
In the fulness of time Slade’s myrmidons captured his ancient enemy
Jules, whom they found in a well-chosen hiding-place in the remote
fastnesses of the mountains, gaining a precarious livelihood with his rifle.
They brought him to Rocky Ridge, bound hand and foot, and deposited him
in the middle of the cattle-yard with his back against a post. It is said that
the pleasure that lit Slade’s face when he heard of it was something fearful
to contemplate. He examined his enemy to see that he was securely tied,
and then went to bed, content to wait till morning before enjoying the
luxury of killing him. Jules spent the night in the cattle-yard, and it is a
region where warm nights are never known. In the morning Slade practised
on him with his revolver, nipping the flesh here and there, and occasionally
clipping off a finger, while Jules begged him to kill him outright and put
him out of his misery. Finally Slade reloaded, and walking up close to his
victim, made some characteristic remarks and then dispatched him. The
body lay there half a day, nobody venturing to touch it without orders, and

then Slade detailed a party and assisted at the burial himself. But he first cut
off the dead man’s ears and put them in his vest pocket, where he carried
them for some time with great satisfaction. That is the story as I have
frequently heard it told and seen it in print in California newspapers. It is
doubtless correct in all essential particulars.
In due time we rattled up to a stage-station, and sat down to breakfast
with a half-savage, half-civilized company of armed and bearded
mountaineers, ranchmen and station employees. The most gentlemanly-
appearing, quiet and affable officer we had yet found along the road in the
Overland Company’s service was the person who sat at the head of the
table, at my elbow. Never youth stared and shivered as I did when I heard
them call him SLADE!
Here was romance, and I sitting face to face with it!—looking upon it—
touching it—hobnobbing with it, as it were! Here, right by my side, was the
actual ogre who, in fights and brawls and various ways, had taken the lives
of twenty-six human beings, or all men lied about him! I suppose I was the
proudest stripling that ever traveled to see strange lands and wonderful
people.
He was so friendly and so gentle-spoken that I warmed to him in spite of
his awful history. It was hardly possible to realize that this pleasant person
was the pitiless scourge of the outlaws, the raw-head-and-bloody- bones the
nursing mothers of the mountains terrified their children with. And to this
day I can remember nothing remarkable about Slade except that his face
was rather broad across the cheek bones, and that the cheek bones were low
and the lips peculiarly thin and straight. But that was enough to leave
something of an effect upon me, for since then I seldom see a face
possessing those characteristics without fancying that the owner of it is a
dangerous man.

The coffee ran out. At least it was reduced to one tin-cupful, and Slade
was about to take it when he saw that my cup was empty.
He politely offered to fill it, but although I wanted it, I politely declined. I
was afraid he had not killed anybody that morning, and might be needing
diversion. But still with firm politeness he insisted on filling my cup, and
said I had traveled all night and better deserved it than he—and while he
talked he placidly poured the fluid, to the last drop. I thanked him and drank
it, but it gave me no comfort, for I could not feel sure that he would not be
sorry, presently, that he had given it away, and proceed to kill me to distract
his thoughts from the loss. But nothing of the kind occurred. We left him
with only twenty-six dead people to account for, and I felt a tranquil
satisfaction in the thought that in so judiciously taking care of No. 1 at that
breakfast-table I had pleasantly escaped being No. 27. Slade came out to the
coach and saw us off, first ordering certain rearrangements of the mail-bags
for our comfort, and then we took leave of him, satisfied that we should
hear of him again, some day, and wondering in what connection.

CHAPTER XI.

And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again.
News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana
(whither Slade had removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him. I find an
account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph from in
the last chapter—“The Vigilantes of Montana; being a Reliable Account of
the Capture, Trial and Execution of Henry Plummer’s Notorious Road
Agent Band: By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Virginia City, M.T.” Mr.
Dimsdale’s chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of how the people
of the frontier deal with criminals when the courts of law prove inefficient.
Mr. Dimsdale makes two remarks about Slade, both of which are accurately
descriptive, and one of which is exceedingly picturesque: “Those who saw
him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be a kind husband, a
most hospitable host and a courteous gentleman; on the contrary, those who
met him when maddened with liquor and surrounded by a gang of armed
roughs, would pronounce him a fiend incarnate.” And this: “From Fort
Kearney, west, he was feared A GREAT DEAL MORE THAN THE
ALMIGHTY.” For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expression, I will
“back” that sentence against anything in literature. Mr. Dimsdale’s narrative
is as follows. In all places where italics occur, they are mine:

After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January,
the Vigilantes considered that their work was nearly ended.
They had freed the country of highwaymen and murderers to
a great extent, and they determined that in the absence of the
regular civil authority they would establish a People’s Court
where all offenders should be tried by judge and jury. This
was the nearest approach to social order that the
circumstances permitted, and, though strict legal authority
was wanting, yet the people were firmly determined to

maintain its efficiency, and to enforce its decrees. It may
here be mentioned that the overt act which was the last
round on the fatal ladder leading to the scaffold on which
Slade perished, was the tearing in pieces and stamping upon
a writ of this court, followed by his arrest of the Judge Alex.
Davis, by authority of a presented Derringer, and with his
own hands.
J. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a
Vigilante; he openly boasted of it, and said he knew all that
they knew. He was never accused, or even suspected, of
either murder or robbery, committed in this Territory (the
latter crime was never laid to his charge, in any place); but
that he had killed several men in other localities was
notorious, and his bad reputation in this respect was a most
powerful argument in determining his fate, when he was
finally arrested for the offence above mentioned. On
returning from Milk River he became more and more
addicted to drinking, until at last it was a common feat for
him and his friends to “take the town.” He and a couple of
his dependents might often be seen on one horse, galloping
through the streets, shouting and yelling, firing revolvers,
etc. On many occasions he would ride his horse into stores,
break up bars, toss the scales out of doors and use most
insulting language to parties present. Just previous to the
day of his arrest, he had given a fearful beating to one of his
followers; but such was his influence over them that the man
wept bitterly at the gallows, and begged for his life with all
his power. It had become quite common, when Slade was on
a spree, for the shop-keepers and citizens to close the stores
and put out all the lights; being fearful of some outrage at
his hands. For his wanton destruction of goods and
furniture, he was always ready to pay, when sober, if he had
money; but there were not a few who regarded payment as
small satisfaction for the outrage, and these men were his
personal enemies.
From time to time Slade received warnings from men that
he well knew would not deceive him, of the certain end of his

conduct. There was not a moment, for weeks previous to his
arrest, in which the public did not expect to hear of some
bloody outrage. The dread of his very name, and the
presence of the armed band of hangers-on who followed him
alone prevented a resistance which must certainly have
ended in the instant murder or mutilation of the opposing
party.
Slade was frequently arrested by order of the court whose
organization we have described, and had treated it with
respect by paying one or two fines and promising to pay the
rest when he had money; but in the transaction that occurred
at this crisis, he forgot even this caution, and goaded by
passion and the hatred of restraint, he sprang into the
embrace of death.
Slade had been drunk and “cutting up” all night. He and
his companions had made the town a perfect hell. In the
morning, J. M. Fox, the sheriff, met him, arrested him, took
him into court and commenced reading a warrant that he
had for his arrest, by way of arraignment. He became
uncontrollably furious, and seizing the writ, he tore it up,
threw it on the ground and stamped upon it.

The clicking of the locks of his companions’ revolvers was
instantly heard, and a crisis was expected. The sheriff did
not attempt his retention; but being at least as prudent as he
was valiant, he succumbed, leaving Slade the master of the
situation and the conqueror and ruler of the courts, law and
law-makers. This was a declaration of war, and was so
accepted. The Vigilance Committee now felt that the
question of social order and the preponderance of the law-
abiding citizens had then and there to be decided. They knew
the character of Slade, and they were well aware that they
must submit to his rule without murmur, or else that he must
be dealt with in such fashion as would prevent his being able
to wreak his vengeance on the committee, who could never
have hoped to live in the Territory secure from outrage or
death, and who could never leave it without encountering
his friends, whom his victory would have emboldened and
stimulated to a pitch that would have rendered them reckless
of consequences. The day previous he had ridden into
Dorris’s store, and on being requested to leave, he drew his
revolver and threatened to kill the gentleman who spoke to
him. Another saloon he had led his horse into, and buying a
bottle of wine, he tried to make the animal drink it. This was
not considered an uncommon performance, as he had often
entered saloons and commenced firing at the lamps, causing
a wild stampede.
A leading member of the committee met Slade, and
informed him in the quiet, earnest manner of one who feels
the importance of what he is saying: “Slade, get your horse
at once, and go home, or there will be——to pay.” Slade
started and took a long look, with his dark and piercing
eyes, at the gentleman. “What do you mean?” said he. “You
have no right to ask me what I mean,” was the quiet reply,
“get your horse at once, and remember what I tell you.”
After a short pause he promised to do so, and actually got
into the saddle; but, being still intoxicated, he began calling
aloud to one after another of his friends, and at last seemed
to have forgotten the warning he had received and became

again uproarious, shouting the name of a well-known
courtezan in company with those of two men whom he
considered heads of the committee, as a sort of challenge;
perhaps, however, as a simple act of bravado. It seems
probable that the intimation of personal danger he had
received had not been forgotten entirely; though fatally for
him, he took a foolish way of showing his remembrance of it.
He sought out Alexander Davis, the Judge of the Court, and
drawing a cocked Derringer, he presented it at his head, and
told him that he should hold him as a hostage for his own
safety. As the judge stood perfectly quiet, and offered no
resistance to his captor, no further outrage followed on this
score. Previous to this, on account of the critical state of
affairs, the committee had met, and at last resolved to arrest
him. His execution had not been agreed upon, and, at that
time, would have been negatived, most assuredly. A
messenger rode down to Nevada to inform the leading men
of what was on hand, as it was desirable to show that there
was a feeling of unanimity on the subject, all along the
gulch.
The miners turned out almost en masse, leaving their
work and forming in solid column about six hundred strong,
armed to the teeth, they marched up to Virginia. The leader
of the body well knew the temper of his men on the subject.
He spurred on ahead of them, and hastily calling a meeting
of the executive, he told them plainly that the miners meant
“business,” and that, if they came up, they would not stand
in the street to be shot down by Slade’s friends; but that they
would take him and hang him. The meeting was small, as the
Virginia men were loath to act at all. This momentous
announcement of the feeling of the Lower Town was made to
a cluster of men, who were deliberating behind a wagon, at
the rear of a store on Main street.
The committee were most unwilling to proceed to
extremities. All the duty they had ever performed seemed as
nothing to the task before them; but they had to decide, and
that quickly. It was finally agreed that if the whole body of

the miners were of the opinion that he should be hanged,
that the committee left it in their hands to deal with him. Off,
at hot speed, rode the leader of the Nevada men to join his
command.
Slade had found out what was intended, and the news
sobered him instantly. He went into P. S. Pfouts’ store, where
Davis was, and apologized for his conduct, saying that he
would take it all back.
The head of the column now wheeled into Wallace street
and marched up at quick time. Halting in front of the store,
the executive officer of the committee stepped forward and
arrested Slade, who was at once informed of his doom, and
inquiry was made as to whether he had any business to
settle. Several parties spoke to him on the subject; but to all
such inquiries he turned a deaf ear, being entirely absorbed
in the terrifying reflections on his own awful position. He
never ceased his entreaties for life, and to see his dear wife.
The unfortunate lady referred to, between whom and Slade
there existed a warm affection, was at this time living at
their ranch on the Madison. She was possessed of
considerable personal attractions; tall, well-formed, of
graceful carriage, pleasing manners, and was, withal, an
accomplished horsewoman.
A messenger from Slade rode at full speed to inform her of
her husband’s arrest. In an instant she was in the saddle,
and with all the energy that love and despair could lend to
an ardent temperament and a strong physique, she urged her
fleet charger over the twelve miles of rough and rocky
ground that intervened between her and the object of her
passionate devotion.
Meanwhile a party of volunteers had made the necessary
preparations for the execution, in the valley traversed by the
branch. Beneath the site of Pfouts and Russell’s stone
building there was a corral, the gate-posts of which were
strong and high. Across the top was laid a beam, to which
the rope was fastened, and a dry-goods box served for the

platform. To this place Slade was marched, surrounded by a
guard, composing the best armed and most numerous force
that has ever appeared in Montana Territory.
The doomed man had so exhausted himself by tears,
prayers and lamentations, that he had scarcely strength left
to stand under the fatal beam. He repeatedly exclaimed,
“My God! my God! must I die? Oh, my dear wife!”
On the return of the fatigue party, they encountered some
friends of Slade, staunch and reliable citizens and members
of the committee, but who were personally attached to the
condemned. On hearing of his sentence, one of them, a
stout-hearted man, pulled out his handkerchief and walked
away, weeping like a child. Slade still begged to see his wife,
most piteously, and it seemed hard to deny his request; but
the bloody consequences that were sure to follow the
inevitable attempt at a rescue, that her presence and
entreaties would have certainly incited, forbade the granting
of his request. Several gentlemen were sent for to see him, in
his last moments, one of whom (Judge Davis) made a short
address to the people; but in such low tones as to be
inaudible, save to a few in his immediate vicinity. One of his
friends, after exhausting his powers of entreaty, threw off his
coat and declared that the prisoner could not be hanged
until he himself was killed. A hundred guns were instantly
leveled at him; whereupon he turned and fled; but, being
brought back, he was compelled to resume his coat, and to
give a promise of future peaceable demeanor.
Scarcely a leading man in Virginia could be found, though
numbers of the citizens joined the ranks of the guard when
the arrest was made. All lamented the stern necessity which
dictated the execution.
Everything being ready, the command was given, “Men,
do your duty,” and the box being instantly slipped from
beneath his feet, he died almost instantaneously.
The body was cut down and carried to the Virginia Hotel,
where, in a darkened room, it was scarcely laid out, when

the unfortunate and bereaved companion of the deceased
arrived, at headlong speed, to find that all was over, and
that she was a widow. Her grief and heart-piercing cries
were terrible evidences of the depth of her attachment for
her lost husband, and a considerable period elapsed before
she could regain the command of her excited feelings.

There is something about the desperado-nature that is wholly
unaccountable—at least it looks unaccountable. It is this. The true
desperado is gifted with splendid courage, and yet he will take the most
infamous advantage of his enemy; armed and free, he will stand up before a
host and fight until he is shot all to pieces, and yet when he is under the
gallows and helpless he will cry and plead like a child. Words are cheap,
and it is easy to call Slade a coward (all executed men who do not “die
game” are promptly called cowards by unreflecting people), and when we
read of Slade that he “had so exhausted himself by tears, prayers and
lamentations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand under the fatal
beam,” the disgraceful word suggests itself in a moment—yet in frequently
defying and inviting the vengeance of banded Rocky Mountain cut-throats
by shooting down their comrades and leaders, and never offering to hide or
fly, Slade showed that he was a man of peerless bravery. No coward would
dare that. Many a notorious coward, many a chicken-livered poltroon,
coarse, brutal, degraded, has made his dying speech without a quaver in his

voice and been swung into eternity with what looked liked the calmest
fortitude, and so we are justified in believing, from the low intellect of such
a creature, that it was not moral courage that enabled him to do it. Then, if
moral courage is not the requisite quality, what could it have been that this
stout-hearted Slade lacked?—this bloody, desperate, kindly-mannered,
urbane gentleman, who never hesitated to warn his most ruffianly enemies
that he would kill them whenever or wherever he came across them next! I
think it is a conundrum worth investigating.

CHAPTER XII.

Just beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a Mormon emigrant train
of thirty-three wagons; and tramping wearily along and driving their herd of
loose cows, were dozens of coarse-clad and sad-looking men, women and
children, who had walked as they were walking now, day after day for eight
lingering weeks, and in that time had compassed the distance our stage had
come in eight days and three hours—seven hundred and ninety-eight miles!
They were dusty and uncombed, hatless, bonnetless and ragged, and they
did look so tired!
After breakfast, we bathed in Horse Creek, a (previously) limpid,
sparkling stream—an appreciated luxury, for it was very seldom that our
furious coach halted long enough for an indulgence of that kind. We
changed horses ten or twelve times in every twenty-four hours—changed
mules, rather—six mules—and did it nearly every time in four minutes. It
was lively work. As our coach rattled up to each station six harnessed mules
stepped gayly from the stable; and in the twinkling of an eye, almost, the
old team was out, and the new one in and we off and away again.
During the afternoon we passed Sweetwater Creek, Independence Rock,
Devil’s Gate and the Devil’s Gap. The latter were wild specimens of rugged
scenery, and full of interest—we were in the heart of the Rocky Mountains,
now. And we also passed by “Alkali” or “Soda Lake,” and we woke up to
the fact that our journey had stretched a long way across the world when the
driver said that the Mormons often came there from Great Salt Lake City to
haul away saleratus. He said that a few days gone by they had shoveled up
enough pure saleratus from the ground (it was a dry lake) to load two
wagons, and that when they got these two wagons-loads of a drug that cost
them nothing, to Salt Lake, they could sell it for twenty-five cents a pound.
In the night we sailed by a most notable curiosity, and one we had been
hearing a good deal about for a day or two, and were suffering to see. This

was what might be called a natural ice-house. It was August, now, and
sweltering weather in the daytime, yet at one of the stations the men could
scape the soil on the hill-side under the lee of a range of boulders, and at a
depth of six inches cut out pure blocks of ice—hard, compactly frozen, and
clear as crystal!
Toward dawn we got under way again, and presently as we sat with
raised curtains enjoying our early-morning smoke and contemplating the
first splendor of the rising sun as it swept down the long array of mountain
peaks, flushing and gilding crag after crag and summit after summit, as if
the invisible Creator reviewed his gray veterans and they saluted with a
smile, we hove in sight of South Pass City. The hotel-keeper, the
postmaster, the blacksmith, the mayor, the constable, the city marshal and
the principal citizen and property holder, all came out and greeted us
cheerily, and we gave him good day. He gave us a little Indian news, and a
little Rocky Mountain news, and we gave him some Plains information in
return. He then retired to his lonely grandeur and we climbed on up among
the bristling peaks and the ragged clouds. South Pass City consisted of four
log cabins, one of which was unfinished, and the gentleman with all those
offices and titles was the chiefest of the ten citizens of the place. Think of
hotel-keeper, postmaster, blacksmith, mayor, constable, city marshal and
principal citizen all condensed into one person and crammed into one skin.
Bemis said he was “a perfect Allen’s revolver of dignities.” And he said that
if he were to die as postmaster, or as blacksmith, or as postmaster and
blacksmith both, the people might stand it; but if he were to die all over, it
would be a frightful loss to the community.

Two miles beyond South Pass City we saw for the first time that
mysterious marvel which all Western untraveled boys have heard of and
fully believe in, but are sure to be astounded at when they see it with their
own eyes, nevertheless—banks of snow in dead summer time. We were
now far up toward the sky, and knew all the time that we must presently
encounter lofty summits clad in the “eternal snow” which was so common
place a matter of mention in books, and yet when I did see it glittering in
the sun on stately domes in the distance and knew the month was August
and that my coat was hanging up because it was too warm to wear it, I was
full as much amazed as if I never had heard of snow in August before.
Truly, “seeing is believing”—and many a man lives a long life through,
thinking he believes certain universally received and well established
things, and yet never suspects that if he were confronted by those things
once, he would discover that he did not really believe them before, but only
thought he believed them.
In a little while quite a number of peaks swung into view with long claws
of glittering snow clasping them; and with here and there, in the shade,
down the mountain side, a little solitary patch of snow looking no larger
than a lady’s pocket-handkerchief but being in reality as large as a “public
square.”

And now, at last, we were fairly in the renowned SOUTH PASS, and
whirling gayly along high above the common world. We were perched upon
the extreme summit of the great range of the Rocky Mountains, toward
which we had been climbing, patiently climbing, ceaselessly climbing, for
days and nights together—and about us was gathered a convention of
Nature’s kings that stood ten, twelve, and even thirteen thousand feet high
—grand old fellows who would have to stoop to see Mount Washington, in
the twilight. We were in such an airy elevation above the creeping
populations of the earth, that now and then when the obstructing crags stood
out of the way it seemed that we could look around and abroad and
contemplate the whole great globe, with its dissolving views of mountains,
seas and continents stretching away through the mystery of the summer
haze.

As a general thing the Pass was more suggestive of a valley than a
suspension bridge in the clouds—but it strongly suggested the latter at one
spot. At that place the upper third of one or two majestic purple domes
projected above our level on either hand and gave us a sense of a hidden
great deep of mountains and plains and valleys down about their bases
which we fancied we might see if we could step to the edge and look over.
These Sultans of the fastnesses were turbaned with tumbled volumes of
cloud, which shredded away from time to time and drifted off fringed and
torn, trailing their continents of shadow after them; and catching presently
on an intercepting peak, wrapped it about and brooded there—then
shredded away again and left the purple peak, as they had left the purple
domes, downy and white with new-laid snow. In passing, these monstrous

rags of cloud hung low and swept along right over the spectator’s head,
swinging their tatters so nearly in his face that his impulse was to shrink
when they came closest. In the one place I speak of, one could look below
him upon a world of diminishing crags and canyons leading down, down,
and away to a vague plain with a thread in it which was a road, and bunches
of feathers in it which were trees,—a pretty picture sleeping in the sunlight
—but with a darkness stealing over it and glooming its features deeper and
deeper under the frown of a coming storm; and then, while no film or
shadow marred the noon brightness of his high perch, he could watch the
tempest break forth down there and see the lightnings leap from crag to crag
and the sheeted rain drive along the canyon-sides, and hear the thunders
peal and crash and roar. We had this spectacle; a familiar one to many, but
to us a novelty.

We bowled along cheerily, and presently, at the very summit (though it
had been all summit to us, and all equally level, for half an hour or more),
we came to a spring which spent its water through two outlets and sent it in
opposite directions. The conductor said that one of those streams which we
were looking at, was just starting on a journey westward to the Gulf of
California and the Pacific Ocean, through hundreds and even thousands of
miles of desert solitudes. He said that the other was just leaving its home
among the snow-peaks on a similar journey eastward—and we knew that
long after we should have forgotten the simple rivulet it would still be
plodding its patient way down the mountain sides, and canyon-beds, and
between the banks of the Yellowstone; and by and by would join the broad
Missouri and flow through unknown plains and deserts and unvisited

wildernesses; and add a long and troubled pilgrimage among snags and
wrecks and sandbars; and enter the Mississippi, touch the wharves of St.
Louis and still drift on, traversing shoals and rocky channels, then endless
chains of bottomless and ample bends, walled with unbroken forests, then
mysterious byways and secret passages among woody islands, then the
chained bends again, bordered with wide levels of shining sugar-cane in
place of the sombre forests; then by New Orleans and still other chains of
bends—and finally, after two long months of daily and nightly harassment,
excitement, enjoyment, adventure, and awful peril of parched throats,
pumps and evaporation, pass the Gulf and enter into its rest upon the bosom
of the tropic sea, never to look upon its snow-peaks again or regret them.
I freighted a leaf with a mental message for the friends at home, and
dropped it in the stream. But I put no stamp on it and it was held for postage
somewhere.
On the summit we overtook an emigrant train of many wagons, many
tired men and women, and many a disgusted sheep and cow.
In the wofully dusty horseman in charge of the expedition I recognized
John ——. Of all persons in the world to meet on top of the Rocky
Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the last one I should have
looked for. We were school-boys together and warm friends for years. But a
boyish prank of mine had disruptured this friendship and it had never been
renewed. The act of which I speak was this. I had been accustomed to visit
occasionally an editor whose room was in the third story of a building and
overlooked the street. One day this editor gave me a watermelon which I
made preparations to devour on the spot, but chancing to look out of the
window, I saw John standing directly under it and an irresistible desire
came upon me to drop the melon on his head, which I immediately did. I
was the loser, for it spoiled the melon, and John never forgave me and we
dropped all intercourse and parted, but now met again under these
circumstances.

We recognized each other simultaneously, and hands were grasped as
warmly as if no coldness had ever existed between us, and no allusion was
made to any. All animosities were buried and the simple fact of meeting a
familiar face in that isolated spot so far from home, was sufficient to make
us forget all things but pleasant ones, and we parted again with sincere
“good-bye” and “God bless you” from both.
We had been climbing up the long shoulders of the Rocky Mountains for
many tedious hours—we started down them, now. And we went spinning
away at a round rate too.
We left the snowy Wind River Mountains and Uinta Mountains behind,
and sped away, always through splendid scenery but occasionally through
long ranks of white skeletons of mules and oxen—monuments of the huge
emigration of other days—and here and there were up-ended boards or

small piles of stones which the driver said marked the resting-place of more
precious remains.
It was the loneliest land for a grave! A land given over to the cayote and
the raven—which is but another name for desolation and utter solitude. On
damp, murky nights, these scattered skeletons gave forth a soft, hideous
glow, like very faint spots of moonlight starring the vague desert. It was
because of the phosphorus in the bones. But no scientific explanation could
keep a body from shivering when he drifted by one of those ghostly lights
and knew that a skull held it.

At midnight it began to rain, and I never saw anything like it—indeed, I
did not even see this, for it was too dark. We fastened down the curtains and
even caulked them with clothing, but the rain streamed in in twenty places,
nothwithstanding. There was no escape. If one moved his feet out of a
stream, he brought his body under one; and if he moved his body he caught
one somewhere else. If he struggled out of the drenched blankets and sat up,
he was bound to get one down the back of his neck. Meantime the stage
was wandering about a plain with gaping gullies in it, for the driver could
not see an inch before his face nor keep the road, and the storm pelted so
pitilessly that there was no keeping the horses still. With the first abatement
the conductor turned out with lanterns to look for the road, and the first
dash he made was into a chasm about fourteen feet deep, his lantern

following like a meteor. As soon as he touched bottom he sang out
frantically:

“Don’t come here!”
To which the driver, who was looking over the precipice where he had
disappeared, replied, with an injured air: “Think I’m a dam fool?”

The conductor was more than an hour finding the road—a matter which
showed us how far we had wandered and what chances we had been taking.
He traced our wheel-tracks to the imminent verge of danger, in two places. I
have always been glad that we were not killed that night. I do not know any
particular reason, but I have always been glad. In the morning, the tenth day
out, we crossed Green River, a fine, large, limpid stream—stuck in it with
the water just up to the top of our mail-bed, and waited till extra teams were
put on to haul us up the steep bank. But it was nice cool water, and besides
it could not find any fresh place on us to wet.
At the Green River station we had breakfast—hot biscuits, fresh antelope
steaks, and coffee—the only decent meal we tasted between the United
States and Great Salt Lake City, and the only one we were ever really
thankful for.
Think of the monotonous execrableness of the thirty that went before it,
to leave this one simple breakfast looming up in my memory like a shot-
tower after all these years have gone by!
At five P.M. we reached Fort Bridger, one hundred and seventeen miles
from the South Pass, and one thousand and twenty-five miles from St.
Joseph. Fifty-two miles further on, near the head of Echo Canyon, we met
sixty United States soldiers from Camp Floyd. The day before, they had

fired upon three hundred or four hundred Indians, whom they supposed
gathered together for no good purpose. In the fight that had ensued, four
Indians were captured, and the main body chased four miles, but nobody
killed. This looked like business. We had a notion to get out and join the
sixty soldiers, but upon reflecting that there were four hundred of the
Indians, we concluded to go on and join the Indians.
Echo Canyon is twenty miles long. It was like a long, smooth, narrow
street, with a gradual descending grade, and shut in by enormous
perpendicular walls of coarse conglomerate, four hundred feet high in many
places, and turreted like mediaeval castles. This was the most faultless piece
of road in the mountains, and the driver said he would “let his team out.”
He did, and if the Pacific express trains whiz through there now any faster
than we did then in the stage-coach, I envy the passengers the exhilaration
of it. We fairly seemed to pick up our wheels and fly—and the mail matter
was lifted up free from everything and held in solution! I am not given to
exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it.
However, time presses. At four in the afternoon we arrived on the summit
of Big Mountain, fifteen miles from Salt Lake City, when all the world was
glorified with the setting sun, and the most stupendous panorama of
mountain peaks yet encountered burst on our sight. We looked out upon this
sublime spectacle from under the arch of a brilliant rainbow! Even the
overland stage-driver stopped his horses and gazed!
Half an hour or an hour later, we changed horses, and took supper with a
Mormon “Destroying Angel.”
“Destroying Angels,” as I understand it, are Latter-Day Saints who are
set apart by the Church to conduct permanent disappearances of obnoxious
citizens. I had heard a deal about these Mormon Destroying Angels and the
dark and bloody deeds they had done, and when I entered this one’s house I
had my shudder all ready. But alas for all our romances, he was nothing but
a loud, profane, offensive, old blackguard! He was murderous enough,
possibly, to fill the bill of a Destroyer, but would you have any kind of an
Angel devoid of dignity? Could you abide an Angel in an unclean shirt and
no suspenders? Could you respect an Angel with a horse-laugh and a
swagger like a buccaneer?

There were other blackguards present—comrades of this one. And there
was one person that looked like a gentleman—Heber C. Kimball’s son, tall
and well made, and thirty years old, perhaps. A lot of slatternly women
flitted hither and thither in a hurry, with coffee-pots, plates of bread, and
other appurtenances to supper, and these were said to be the wives of the
Angel—or some of them, at least. And of course they were; for if they had
been hired “help” they would not have let an angel from above storm and
swear at them as he did, let alone one from the place this one hailed from.
This was our first experience of the western “peculiar institution,” and it
was not very prepossessing. We did not tarry long to observe it, but hurried
on to the home of the Latter-Day Saints, the stronghold of the prophets, the
capital of the only absolute monarch in America—Great Salt Lake City. As

the night closed in we took sanctuary in the Salt Lake House and unpacked
our baggage.

CHAPTER XIII.

We had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and fowls and vegetables—a
great variety and as great abundance. We walked about the streets some,
afterward, and glanced in at shops and stores; and there was fascination in
surreptitiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mormon. This was
fairy-land to us, to all intents and purposes—a land of enchantment, and
goblins, and awful mystery. We felt a curiosity to ask every child how many
mothers it had, and if it could tell them apart; and we experienced a thrill
every time a dwelling-house door opened and shut as we passed, disclosing
a glimpse of human heads and backs and shoulders—for we so longed to
have a good satisfying look at a Mormon family in all its comprehensive
ampleness, disposed in the customary concentric rings of its home circle.
By and by the Acting Governor of the Territory introduced us to other
“Gentiles,” and we spent a sociable hour with them. “Gentiles” are people
who are not Mormons. Our fellow-passenger, Bemis, took care of himself,
during this part of the evening, and did not make an overpowering success
of it, either, for he came into our room in the hotel about eleven o’clock,
full of cheerfulness, and talking loosely, disjointedly and indiscriminately,
and every now and then tugging out a ragged word by the roots that had
more hiccups than syllables in it. This, together with his hanging his coat on
the floor on one side of a chair, and his vest on the floor on the other side,
and piling his pants on the floor just in front of the same chair, and then
comtemplating the general result with superstitious awe, and finally
pronouncing it “too many for him” and going to bed with his boots on, led
us to fear that something he had eaten had not agreed with him.
But we knew afterward that it was something he had been drinking. It
was the exclusively Mormon refresher, “valley tan.”
Valley tan (or, at least, one form of valley tan) is a kind of whisky, or first
cousin to it; is of Mormon invention and manufactured only in Utah.

Tradition says it is made of (imported) fire and brimstone. If I remember
rightly no public drinking saloons were allowed in the kingdom by Brigham
Young, and no private drinking permitted among the faithful, except they
confined themselves to “valley tan.”

Next day we strolled about everywhere through the broad, straight, level
streets, and enjoyed the pleasant strangeness of a city of fifteen thousand
inhabitants with no loafers perceptible in it; and no visible drunkards or
noisy people; a limpid stream rippling and dancing through every street in
place of a filthy gutter; block after block of trim dwellings, built of “frame”
and sunburned brick—a great thriving orchard and garden behind every one
of them, apparently—branches from the street stream winding and
sparkling among the garden beds and fruit trees—and a grand general air of
neatness, repair, thrift and comfort, around and about and over the whole.
And everywhere were workshops, factories, and all manner of industries;
and intent faces and busy hands were to be seen wherever one looked; and

in one’s ears was the ceaseless clink of hammers, the buzz of trade and the
contented hum of drums and fly-wheels.

The armorial crest of my own State consisted of two dissolute bears
holding up the head of a dead and gone cask between them and making the
pertinent remark, “UNITED, WE STAND—(hic!)—DIVIDED, WE
FALL.” It was always too figurative for the author of this book. But the
Mormon crest was easy. And it was simple, unostentatious, and fitted like a
glove. It was a representation of a GOLDEN BEEHIVE, with the bees all at
work!

The city lies in the edge of a level plain as broad as the State of
Connecticut, and crouches close down to the ground under a curving wall of
mighty mountains whose heads are hidden in the clouds, and whose
shoulders bear relics of the snows of winter all the summer long.
Seen from one of these dizzy heights, twelve or fifteen miles off, Great
Salt Lake City is toned down and diminished till it is suggestive of a child’s
toy-village reposing under the majestic protection of the Chinese wall.
On some of those mountains, to the southwest, it had been raining every
day for two weeks, but not a drop had fallen in the city. And on hot days in
late spring and early autumn the citizens could quit fanning and growling
and go out and cool off by looking at the luxury of a glorious snow-storm
going on in the mountains. They could enjoy it at a distance, at those
seasons, every day, though no snow would fall in their streets, or anywhere
near them.

Salt Lake City was healthy—an extremely healthy city. They declared
there was only one physician in the place and he was arrested every week
regularly and held to answer under the vagrant act for having “no visible
means of support.” They always give you a good substantial article of truth
in Salt Lake, and good measure and good weight, too. [Very often, if you
wished to weigh one of their airiest little commonplace statements you
would want the hay scales.]
We desired to visit the famous inland sea, the American “Dead Sea,” the
great Salt Lake—seventeen miles, horseback, from the city—for we had
dreamed about it, and thought about it, and talked about it, and yearned to
see it, all the first part of our trip; but now when it was only arm’s length
away it had suddenly lost nearly every bit of its interest. And so we put it
off, in a sort of general way, till next day—and that was the last we ever
thought of it. We dined with some hospitable Gentiles; and visited the
foundation of the prodigious temple; and talked long with that shrewd
Connecticut Yankee, Heber C. Kimball (since deceased), a saint of high
degree and a mighty man of commerce.

We saw the “Tithing-House,” and the “Lion House,” and I do not know
or remember how many more church and government buildings of various
kinds and curious names. We flitted hither and thither and enjoyed every
hour, and picked up a great deal of useful information and entertaining
nonsense, and went to bed at night satisfied.
The second day, we made the acquaintance of Mr. Street (since deceased)
and put on white shirts and went and paid a state visit to the king. He
seemed a quiet, kindly, easy-mannered, dignified, self-possessed old
gentleman of fifty-five or sixty, and had a gentle craft in his eye that
probably belonged there. He was very simply dressed and was just taking
off a straw hat as we entered. He talked about Utah, and the Indians, and
Nevada, and general American matters and questions, with our secretary
and certain government officials who came with us. But he never paid any
attention to me, notwithstanding I made several attempts to “draw him out”
on federal politics and his high handed attitude toward Congress. I thought
some of the things I said were rather fine. But he merely looked around at
me, at distant intervals, something as I have seen a benignant old cat look
around to see which kitten was meddling with her tail.

By and by I subsided into an indignant silence, and so sat until the end,
hot and flushed, and execrating him in my heart for an ignorant savage. But
he was calm. His conversation with those gentlemen flowed on as sweetly
and peacefully and musically as any summer brook. When the audience was
ended and we were retiring from the presence, he put his hand on my head,
beamed down on me in an admiring way and said to my brother:
“Ah—your child, I presume? Boy, or girl?”

CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. Street was very busy with his telegraphic matters—and considering
that he had eight or nine hundred miles of rugged, snowy, uninhabited
mountains, and waterless, treeless, melancholy deserts to traverse with his
wire, it was natural and needful that he should be as busy as possible. He
could not go comfortably along and cut his poles by the road-side, either,
but they had to be hauled by ox teams across those exhausting deserts—and
it was two days’ journey from water to water, in one or two of them. Mr.
Street’s contract was a vast work, every way one looked at it; and yet to
comprehend what the vague words “eight hundred miles of rugged
mountains and dismal deserts” mean, one must go over the ground in
person—pen and ink descriptions cannot convey the dreary reality to the
reader. And after all, Mr. S.’s mightiest difficulty turned out to be one which
he had never taken into the account at all. Unto Mormons he had sub-let the
hardest and heaviest half of his great undertaking, and all of a sudden they
concluded that they were going to make little or nothing, and so they
tranquilly threw their poles overboard in mountain or desert, just as it
happened when they took the notion, and drove home and went about their
customary business! They were under written contract to Mr. Street, but
they did not care anything for that. They said they would “admire” to see a
“Gentile” force a Mormon to fulfil a losing contract in Utah! And they
made themselves very merry over the matter. Street said—for it was he that
told us these things:
“I was in dismay. I was under heavy bonds to complete my contract in a
given time, and this disaster looked very much like ruin. It was an
astounding thing; it was such a wholly unlooked-for difficulty, that I was
entirely nonplussed. I am a business man—have always been a business
man—do not know anything but business—and so you can imagine how
like being struck by lightning it was to find myself in a country where

written contracts were worthless!—that main security, that sheet-anchor,
that absolute necessity, of business. My confidence left me. There was no
use in making new contracts—that was plain. I talked with first one
prominent citizen and then another. They all sympathized with me, first
rate, but they did not know how to help me. But at last a Gentile said, ‘Go
to Brigham Young!—these small fry cannot do you any good.’ I did not
think much of the idea, for if the law could not help me, what could an
individual do who had not even anything to do with either making the laws
or executing them? He might be a very good patriarch of a church and
preacher in its tabernacle, but something sterner than religion and moral
suasion was needed to handle a hundred refractory, half-civilized sub-
contractors. But what was a man to do? I thought if Mr. Young could not do
anything else, he might probably be able to give me some advice and a
valuable hint or two, and so I went straight to him and laid the whole case
before him. He said very little, but he showed strong interest all the way
through. He examined all the papers in detail, and whenever there seemed
anything like a hitch, either in the papers or my statement, he would go
back and take up the thread and follow it patiently out to an intelligent and
satisfactory result. Then he made a list of the contractors’ names. Finally he
said:
“‘Mr. Street, this is all perfectly plain. These contracts are strictly and
legally drawn, and are duly signed and certified. These men manifestly
entered into them with their eyes open. I see no fault or flaw anywhere.’
“Then Mr. Young turned to a man waiting at the other end of the room
and said: ‘Take this list of names to So-and-so, and tell him to have these
men here at such-and-such an hour.’
“They were there, to the minute. So was I. Mr. Young asked them a
number of questions, and their answers made my statement good. Then he
said to them:
“‘You signed these contracts and assumed these obligations of your own
free will and accord?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Then carry them out to the letter, if it makes paupers of you! Go!’

“And they did go, too! They are strung across the deserts now, working
like bees. And I never hear a word out of them.
“There is a batch of governors, and judges, and other officials here,
shipped from Washington, and they maintain the semblance of a republican
form of government—but the petrified truth is that Utah is an absolute
monarchy and Brigham Young is king!”
Mr. Street was a fine man, and I believe his story. I knew him well during
several years afterward in San Francisco.
Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we
had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of
polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to
calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.

I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was
feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here—until I saw
the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my
head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically “homely”
creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said,
“No—the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity
which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh
censure—and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-
handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his
presence and worship in silence.”
[For a brief sketch of Mormon history, and the noted Mountain Meadow
massacre, see Appendices A and B. ]

CHAPTER XV.

It is a luscious country for thrilling evening stories about assassinations
of intractable Gentiles. I cannot easily conceive of anything more cosy than
the night in Salt Lake which we spent in a Gentile den, smoking pipes and
listening to tales of how Burton galloped in among the pleading and
defenceless “Morisites” and shot them down, men and women, like so
many dogs. And how Bill Hickman, a Destroying Angel, shot Drown and
Arnold dead for bringing suit against him for a debt. And how Porter
Rockwell did this and that dreadful thing. And how heedless people often
come to Utah and make remarks about Brigham, or polygamy, or some
other sacred matter, and the very next morning at daylight such parties are
sure to be found lying up some back alley, contentedly waiting for the
hearse.
And the next most interesting thing is to sit and listen to these Gentiles
talk about polygamy; and how some portly old frog of an elder, or a bishop,
marries a girl—likes her, marries her sister—likes her, marries another
sister—likes her, takes another—likes her, marries her mother—likes her,
marries her father, grandfather, great grandfather, and then comes back
hungry and asks for more. And how the pert young thing of eleven will
chance to be the favorite wife and her own venerable grandmother have to
rank away down toward D 4 in their mutual husband’s esteem, and have to
sleep in the kitchen, as like as not. And how this dreadful sort of thing, this
hiving together in one foul nest of mother and daughters, and the making a
young daughter superior to her own mother in rank and authority, are things
which Mormon women submit to because their religion teaches them that
the more wives a man has on earth, and the more children he rears, the
higher the place they will all have in the world to come—and the warmer,
maybe, though they do not seem to say anything about that.

According to these Gentile friends of ours, Brigham Young’s harem
contains twenty or thirty wives. They said that some of them had grown old
and gone out of active service, but were comfortably housed and cared for
in the henery—or the Lion House, as it is strangely named. Along with each
wife were her children—fifty altogether. The house was perfectly quiet and
orderly, when the children were still. They all took their meals in one room,
and a happy and home-like sight it was pronounced to be. None of our party
got an opportunity to take dinner with Mr. Young, but a Gentile by the name
of Johnson professed to have enjoyed a sociable breakfast in the Lion
House. He gave a preposterous account of the “calling of the roll,” and
other preliminaries, and the carnage that ensued when the buckwheat cakes
came in. But he embellished rather too much. He said that Mr. Young told
him several smart sayings of certain of his “two-year-olds,” observing with
some pride that for many years he had been the heaviest contributor in that
line to one of the Eastern magazines; and then he wanted to show Mr.
Johnson one of the pets that had said the last good thing, but he could not
find the child.
He searched the faces of the children in detail, but could not decide
which one it was. Finally he gave it up with a sigh and said:

“I thought I would know the little cub again but I don’t.” Mr. Johnson
said further, that Mr. Young observed that life was a sad, sad thing
—“because the joy of every new marriage a man contracted was so apt to
be blighted by the inopportune funeral of a less recent bride.” And Mr.
Johnson said that while he and Mr. Young were pleasantly conversing in
private, one of the Mrs. Youngs came in and demanded a breast-pin,
remarking that she had found out that he had been giving a breast-pin to No.
6, and she, for one, did not propose to let this partiality go on without
making a satisfactory amount of trouble about it. Mr. Young reminded her
that there was a stranger present. Mrs. Young said that if the state of things
inside the house was not agreeable to the stranger, he could find room
outside. Mr. Young promised the breast-pin, and she went away. But in a
minute or two another Mrs. Young came in and demanded a breast-pin. Mr.
Young began a remonstrance, but Mrs. Young cut him short. She said No. 6
had got one, and No. 11 was promised one, and it was “no use for him to try
to impose on her—she hoped she knew her rights.” He gave his promise,
and she went. And presently three Mrs. Youngs entered in a body and
opened on their husband a tempest of tears, abuse, and entreaty. They had
heard all about No. 6, No. 11, and No. 14. Three more breast-pins were
promised. They were hardly gone when nine more Mrs. Youngs filed into
the presence, and a new tempest burst forth and raged round about the

prophet and his guest. Nine breast-pins were promised, and the weird sisters
filed out again. And in came eleven more, weeping and wailing and
gnashing their teeth. Eleven promised breast-pins purchased peace once
more.
“That is a specimen,” said Mr. Young. “You see how it is. You see what a
life I lead. A man can’t be wise all the time. In a heedless moment I gave
my darling No. 6—excuse my calling her thus, as her other name has
escaped me for the moment—a breast-pin. It was only worth twenty-five
dollars—that is, apparently that was its whole cost—but its ultimate cost
was inevitably bound to be a good deal more. You yourself have seen it
climb up to six hundred and fifty dollars—and alas, even that is not the end!
For I have wives all over this Territory of Utah. I have dozens of wives
whose numbers, even, I do not know without looking in the family Bible.
They are scattered far and wide among the mountains and valleys of my
realm. And mark you, every solitary one of them will hear of this wretched
breast pin, and every last one of them will have one or die. No. 6’s breast
pin will cost me twenty-five hundred dollars before I see the end of it. And
these creatures will compare these pins together, and if one is a shade finer
than the rest, they will all be thrown on my hands, and I will have to order a
new lot to keep peace in the family. Sir, you probably did not know it, but
all the time you were present with my children your every movement was
watched by vigilant servitors of mine. If you had offered to give a child a
dime, or a stick of candy, or any trifle of the kind, you would have been
snatched out of the house instantly, provided it could be done before your
gift left your hand. Otherwise it would be absolutely necessary for you to
make an exactly similar gift to all my children—and knowing by experience
the importance of the thing, I would have stood by and seen to it myself that
you did it, and did it thoroughly. Once a gentleman gave one of my children
a tin whistle—a veritable invention of Satan, sir, and one which I have an
unspeakable horror of, and so would you if you had eighty or ninety
children in your house. But the deed was done—the man escaped. I knew
what the result was going to be, and I thirsted for vengeance. I ordered out a
flock of Destroying Angels, and they hunted the man far into the fastnesses
of the Nevada mountains. But they never caught him. I am not cruel, sir—I
am not vindictive except when sorely outraged—but if I had caught him,
sir, so help me Joseph Smith, I would have locked him into the nursery till
the brats whistled him to death. By the slaughtered body of St. Parley Pratt

(whom God assoil!) there was never anything on this earth like it! I knew
who gave the whistle to the child, but I could, not make those jealous
mothers believe me. They believed I did it, and the result was just what any
man of reflection could have foreseen: I had to order a hundred and ten
whistles—I think we had a hundred and ten children in the house then, but
some of them are off at college now—I had to order a hundred and ten of
those shrieking things, and I wish I may never speak another word if we
didn’t have to talk on our fingers entirely, from that time forth until the
children got tired of the whistles. And if ever another man gives a whistle to
a child of mine and I get my hands on him, I will hang him higher than
Haman! That is the word with the bark on it! Shade of Nephi! You don’t
know anything about married life. I am rich, and everybody knows it. I am
benevolent, and everybody takes advantage of it. I have a strong fatherly
instinct and all the foundlings are foisted on me.
“Every time a woman wants to do well by her darling, she puzzles her
brain to cipher out some scheme for getting it into my hands. Why, sir, a
woman came here once with a child of a curious lifeless sort of complexion
(and so had the woman), and swore that the child was mine and she my
wife—that I had married her at such-and-such a time in such-and-such a
place, but she had forgotten her number, and of course I could not
remember her name. Well, sir, she called my attention to the fact that the
child looked like me, and really it did seem to resemble me—a common
thing in the Territory—and, to cut the story short, I put it in my nursery, and
she left.

“And by the ghost of Orson Hyde, when they came to wash the paint off
that child it was an Injun! Bless my soul, you don’t know anything about
married life. It is a perfect dog’s life, sir—a perfect dog’s life. You can’t
economize. It isn’t possible. I have tried keeping one set of bridal attire for
all occasions. But it is of no use. First you’ll marry a combination of calico
and consumption that’s as thin as a rail, and next you’ll get a creature that’s
nothing more than the dropsy in disguise, and then you’ve got to eke out
that bridal dress with an old balloon. That is the way it goes. And think of
the wash-bill—(excuse these tears)—nine hundred and eighty-four pieces a
week! No, sir, there is no such a thing as economy in a family like mine.
Why, just the one item of cradles—think of it! And vermifuge! Soothing
syrup! Teething rings! And ‘papa’s watches’ for the babies to play with!
And things to scratch the furniture with! And lucifer matches for them to
eat, and pieces of glass to cut themselves with! The item of glass alone
would support your family, I venture to say, sir. Let me scrimp and squeeze
all I can, I still can’t get ahead as fast as I feel I ought to, with my
opportunities. Bless you, sir, at a time when I had seventy-two wives in this
house, I groaned under the pressure of keeping thousands of dollars tied up
in seventy-two bedsteads when the money ought to have been out at
interest; and I just sold out the whole stock, sir, at a sacrifice, and built a
bedstead seven feet long and ninety-six feet wide.”

“But it was a failure, sir. I could not sleep. It appeared to me that the
whole seventy-two women snored at once. The roar was deafening. And
then the danger of it! That was what I was looking at. They would all draw
in their breath at once, and you could actually see the walls of the house
suck in—and then they would all exhale their breath at once, and you could
see the walls swell out, and strain, and hear the rafters crack, and the
shingles grind together. My friend, take an old man’s advice, and don’t
encumber yourself with a large family—mind, I tell you, don’t do it. In a
small family, and in a small family only, you will find that comfort and that
peace of mind which are the best at last of the blessings this world is able to
afford us, and for the lack of which no accumulation of wealth, and no
acquisition of fame, power, and greatness can ever compensate us. Take my
word for it, ten or eleven wives is all you need—never go over it.”
Some instinct or other made me set this Johnson down as being
unreliable. And yet he was a very entertaining person, and I doubt if some
of the information he gave us could have been acquired from any other
source. He was a pleasant contrast to those reticent Mormons.

CHAPTER XVI.

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect”
have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy
from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair,
and yet so “slow,” so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is
chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a
miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to
tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-
engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an
out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for
the same reason.
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the
Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New
Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint,
old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James’s translation of the
Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel—half modern glibness, and half
ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the
former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his
speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he
ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as “exceeding sore,” “and it came to
pass,” etc., and made things satisfactory again. “And it came to pass” was
his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.
The title-page reads as follows:

THE BOOK OF MORMON: AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN
BY THE HAND OF MORMON, UPON PLATES TAKEN
FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI.
Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people
of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the

Lamanites, who are a remnant of the House of Israel; and
also to Jew and Gentile; written by way of commandment,
and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written
and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not
be destroyed; to come forth by the gift and power of God
unto the interpretation thereof; sealed by the hand of
Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time
by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of
God. An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also;
which is a record of the people of Jared; who were scattered
at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people
when they were building a tower to get to Heaven.

“Hid up” is good. And so is “wherefore”—though why “wherefore”? Any
other word would have answered as well—though—in truth it would not
have sounded so Scriptural.
Next comes:

THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES. Be it known
unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom
this work shall come, that we, through the grace of God the
Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates
which contain this record, which is a record of the people of
Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of
the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath
been spoken; and we also know that they have been
translated by the gift and power of God, for His voice hath
declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the
work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the
engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been
shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we
declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came
down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes,
that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings
thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the
Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear
record that these things are true; and it is marvellous in our

eyes; nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that
we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto
the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these
things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we
shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found
spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell
with Him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one
God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY, DAVID WHITMER,
MARTIN HARRIS.

Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come
anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a
man tells me that he has “seen the engravings which are upon the plates,”
and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them,
and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction,
no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do
not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.
Next is this:

AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF EIGHT WITNESSES.
Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people
unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the
translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of
which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of
gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has
translated, we did handle with our hands; and we also saw
the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of
ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear
record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has
shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a
surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we
have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to
witness unto the world that which we have seen; and we lie
not, God bearing witness of it. CHRISTIAN WHITMER,
JACOB WHITMER, PETER WHITMER, JR., JOHN

WHITMER, HIRAM PAGE, JOSEPH SMITH, SR., HYRUM
SMITH, SAMUEL H. SMITH.

And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they
grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the
plates too; and not only seen those plates but “hefted” them, I am
convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer
family had testified.
The Mormon Bible consists of fifteen “books”—being the books of
Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Zeniff, Alma, Helaman, Ether, Moroni,
two “books” of Mormon, and three of Nephi.
In the first book of Nephi is a plagiarism of the Old Testament, which
gives an account of the exodus from Jerusalem of the “children of Lehi”;
and it goes on to tell of their wanderings in the wilderness, during eight
years, and their supernatural protection by one of their number, a party by
the name of Nephi. They finally reached the land of “Bountiful,” and
camped by the sea. After they had remained there “for the space of many
days”—which is more Scriptural than definite—Nephi was commanded
from on high to build a ship wherein to “carry the people across the
waters.” He travestied Noah’s ark—but he obeyed orders in the matter of
the plan. He finished the ship in a single day, while his brethren stood by
and made fun of it—and of him, too—“saying, our brother is a fool, for he
thinketh that he can build a ship.” They did not wait for the timbers to dry,
but the whole tribe or nation sailed the next day. Then a bit of genuine
nature cropped out, and is revealed by outspoken Nephi with Scriptural
frankness—they all got on a spree! They, “and also their wives, began to
make themselves merry, insomuch that they began to dance, and to sing,
and to speak with much rudeness; yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding
rudeness.”
Nephi tried to stop these scandalous proceedings; but they tied him neck
and heels, and went on with their lark. But observe how Nephi the prophet
circumvented them by the aid of the invisible powers:

And it came to pass that after they had bound me,
insomuch that I could not move, the compass, which had
been prepared of the Lord, did cease to work; wherefore,
they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch

that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible
tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the
space of three days; and they began to be frightened
exceedingly, lest they should be drowned in the sea;
nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day,
which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be
exceeding sore. And it came to pass that we were about to be
swallowed up in the depths of the sea.

Then they untied him.

And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behold, I
took the compass, and it did work whither I desired it. And it
came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had
prayed, the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and
there was a great calm.

Equipped with their compass, these ancients appear to have had the
advantage of Noah.
Their voyage was toward a “promised land”—the only name they give it.
They reached it in safety.
Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon religion, and was added by
Brigham Young after Joseph Smith’s death. Before that, it was regarded as
an “abomination.” This verse from the Mormon Bible occurs in Chapter II.
of the book of Jacob:

For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax
in iniquity; they understand not the Scriptures; for they seek
to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of
the things which were written concerning David, and
Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had
many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable
before me, saith the Lord; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I
have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by
the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a
righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.
Wherefore, I the Lord God, will no suffer that this people
shall do like unto them of old.

However, the project failed—or at least the modern Mormon end of it—
for Brigham “suffers” it. This verse is from the same chapter:

Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate,
because of their filthiness and the cursings which hath come
upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have
not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was
given unto our fathers, that they should have, save it were
one wife; and concubines they should have none.

The following verse (from Chapter IX. of the Book of Nephi) appears to
contain information not familiar to everybody:

And now it came to pass that when Jesus had ascended
into heaven, the multitude did disperse, and every man did

take his wife and his children, and did return to his own
home.
And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the
multitude was gathered together, behold, Nephi and his
brother whom he had raised from the dead, whose name was
Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas, and also
Mathoni, and Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and
Kumenenhi, and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and
Zedekiah, and Isaiah; now these were the names of the
disciples whom Jesus had chosen.

In order that the reader may observe how much more grandeur and
picturesqueness (as seen by these Mormon twelve) accompanied one of the
tenderest episodes in the life of our Saviour than other eyes seem to have
been aware of, I quote the following from the same “book”—Nephi:

And it came to pass that Jesus spake unto them, and bade
them arise. And they arose from the earth, and He said unto
them, Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold,
My joy is full. And when He had said these words, He wept,
and the multitude bear record of it, and He took their little
children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the
Father for them. And when He had done this He wept again,
and He spake unto the multitude, and saith unto them,
Behold your little ones. And as they looked to behold, they
cast their eyes toward heaven, and they saw the heavens
open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it
were, in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled
those little ones about, and they were encircled about with
fire; and the angels did minister unto them, and the
multitude did see and hear and bear record; and they know
that their record is true, for they all of them did see and
hear, every man for himself; and they were in number about
two thousand and five hundred souls; and they did consist of
men, women, and children.

And what else would they be likely to consist of?

The Book of Ether is an incomprehensible medley of “history,” much of
it relating to battles and sieges among peoples whom the reader has
possibly never heard of; and who inhabited a country which is not set down
in the geography. There was a King with the remarkable name of
Coriantumr, and he warred with Shared, and Lib, and Shiz, and others, in
the “plains of Heshlon”; and the “valley of Gilgal”; and the “wilderness of
Akish”; and the “land of Moran”; and the “plains of Agosh”; and “Ogath,”
and “Ramah,” and the “land of Corihor,” and the “hill Comnor,” by “the
waters of Ripliancum,” etc., etc., etc. “And it came to pass,” after a deal of
fighting, that Coriantumr, upon making calculation of his losses, found that
“there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and
their children”—say 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 in all—“and he began to
sorrow in his heart.” Unquestionably it was time. So he wrote to Shiz,
asking a cessation of hostilities, and offering to give up his kingdom to save
his people. Shiz declined, except upon condition that Coriantumr would
come and let him cut his head off first—a thing which Coriantumr would
not do. Then there was more fighting for a season; then four years were
devoted to gathering the forces for a final struggle—after which ensued a
battle, which, I take it, is the most remarkable set forth in history,—except,
perhaps, that of the Kilkenny cats, which it resembles in some respects.
This is the account of the gathering and the battle:

7. And it came to pass that they did gather together all the
people, upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain,
save it was Ether. And it came to pass that Ether did behold
all the doings of the people; and he beheld that the people
who were for Coriantumr, were gathered together to the
army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz, were
gathered together to the army of Shiz; wherefore they were
for the space of four years gathering together the people,
that they might get all who were upon the face of the land,
and that they might receive all the strength which it was
possible that they could receive. And it came to pass that
when they were all gathered together, every one to the army
which he would, with their wives and their children; both
men, women, and children being armed with weapons of
war, having shields, and breast-plates, and head-plates, and

being clothed after the manner of war, they did march forth
one against another, to battle; and they fought all that day,
and conquered not. And it came to pass that when it was
night they were weary, and retired to their camps; and after
they had retired to their camps, they took up a howling and a
lamentation for the loss of the slain of their people; and so
great were their cries, their howlings and lamentations, that
it did rend the air exceedingly. And it came to pass that on
the morrow they did go again to battle, and great and
terrible was that day; nevertheless they conquered not, and
when the night came again, they did rend the air with their
cries, and their howlings, and their mournings, for the loss
of the slain of their people.
8. And it came to pass that Coriantumr wrote again an
epistle unto Shiz, desiring that he would not come again to
battle, but that he would take the kingdom, and spare the
lives of the people. But behold, the Spirit of the Lord had
ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the
hearts of the people, for they were given up unto the
hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds
that they might be destroyed; wherefore they went again to
battle. And it came to pass that they fought all that day, and
when the night came they slept upon their swords; and on
the morrow they fought even until the night came; and when
the night came they were drunken with anger, even as a man
who is drunken with wine; and they slept again upon their
swords; and on the morrow they fought again; and when the
night came they had all fallen by the sword save it were fifty
and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty and nine of
the people of Shiz. And it came to pass that they slept upon
their swords that night, and on the morrow they fought
again, and they contended in their mights with their swords,
and with their shields, all that day; and when the night came
there were thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and twenty
and seven of the people of Coriantumr.
9. And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and
prepared for death on the morrow. And they were large and

mighty men, as to the strength of men. And it came to pass
that they fought for the space of three hours, and they
fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that when
the men of Coriantumr had received sufficient strength, that
they could walk, they were about to flee for their lives, but
behold, Shiz arose, and also his men, and he swore in his
wrath that he would slay Coriantumr, or he would perish by
the sword: wherefore he did pursue them, and on the
morrow he did overtake them; and they fought again with
the sword. And it came to pass that when they had all fallen
by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz
had fainted with loss of blood. And it came to pass that when
Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a
little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass that
after he had smote off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon
his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for
breath, he died. And it came to pass that Coriantumr fell to
the earth, and became as if he had no life. And the Lord
spake unto Ether, and said unto him, go forth. And he went
forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been
fulfilled; and he finished his record; and the hundredth part
I have not written.

It seems a pity he did not finish, for after all his dreary former chapters of
commonplace, he stopped just as he was in danger of becoming interesting.
The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is
nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable—it is
“smouched” [Milton] from the New Testament and no credit given.

CHAPTER XVII.

At the end of our two days’ sojourn, we left Great Salt Lake City hearty
and well fed and happy—physically superb but not so very much wiser, as
regards the “Mormon question,” than we were when we arrived, perhaps.
We had a deal more “information” than we had before, of course, but we
did not know what portion of it was reliable and what was not—for it all
came from acquaintances of a day—strangers, strictly speaking. We were
told, for instance, that the dreadful “Mountain Meadows Massacre” was the
work of the Indians entirely, and that the Gentiles had meanly tried to fasten
it upon the Mormons; we were told, likewise, that the Indians were to
blame, partly, and partly the Mormons; and we were told, likewise, and just
as positively, that the Mormons were almost if not wholly and completely
responsible for that most treacherous and pitiless butchery. We got the story
in all these different shapes, but it was not till several years afterward that
Mrs. Waite’s book, “The Mormon Prophet,” came out with Judge
Cradlebaugh’s trial of the accused parties in it and revealed the truth that the
latter version was the correct one and that the Mormons were the assassins.
All our “information” had three sides to it, and so I gave up the idea that I
could settle the “Mormon question” in two days. Still I have seen
newspaper correspondents do it in one.

I left Great Salt Lake a good deal confused as to what state of things
existed there—and sometimes even questioning in my own mind whether a
state of things existed there at all or not. But presently I remembered with a
lightening sense of relief that we had learned two or three trivial things
there which we could be certain of; and so the two days were not wholly
lost. For instance, we had learned that we were at last in a pioneer land, in
absolute and tangible reality.
The high prices charged for trifles were eloquent of high freights and
bewildering distances of freightage. In the east, in those days, the smallest
moneyed denomination was a penny and it represented the smallest
purchasable quantity of any commodity. West of Cincinnati the smallest
coin in use was the silver five-cent piece and no smaller quantity of an
article could be bought than “five cents’ worth.” In Overland City the
lowest coin appeared to be the ten-cent piece; but in Salt Lake there did not
seem to be any money in circulation smaller than a quarter, or any smaller
quantity purchasable of any commodity than twenty-five cents’ worth. We
had always been used to half dimes and “five cents’ worth” as the minimum
of financial negotiations; but in Salt Lake if one wanted a cigar, it was a
quarter; if he wanted a chalk pipe, it was a quarter; if he wanted a peach, or
a candle, or a newspaper, or a shave, or a little Gentile whiskey to rub on his
corns to arrest indigestion and keep him from having the toothache, twenty-
five cents was the price, every time. When we looked at the shot-bag of

silver, now and then, we seemed to be wasting our substance in riotous
living, but if we referred to the expense account we could see that we had
not been doing anything of the kind.

But people easily get reconciled to big money and big prices, and fond
and vain of both—it is a descent to little coins and cheap prices that is
hardest to bear and slowest to take hold upon one’s toleration. After a
month’s acquaintance with the twenty-five cent minimum, the average
human being is ready to blush every time he thinks of his despicable five-
cent days. How sunburnt with blushes I used to get in gaudy Nevada, every
time I thought of my first financial experience in Salt Lake. It was on this
wise (which is a favorite expression of great authors, and a very neat one,
too, but I never hear anybody say on this wise when they are talking). A
young half-breed with a complexion like a yellow-jacket asked me if I
would have my boots blacked. It was at the Salt Lake House the morning
after we arrived. I said yes, and he blacked them. Then I handed him a
silver five-cent piece, with the benevolent air of a person who is conferring
wealth and blessedness upon poverty and suffering. The yellow-jacket took
it with what I judged to be suppressed emotion, and laid it reverently down
in the middle of his broad hand. Then he began to contemplate it, much as a
philosopher contemplates a gnat’s ear in the ample field of his microscope.
Several mountaineers, teamsters, stage-drivers, etc., drew near and dropped
into the tableau and fell to surveying the money with that attractive
indifference to formality which is noticeable in the hardy pioneer. Presently
the yellow-jacket handed the half dime back to me and told me I ought to
keep my money in my pocket-book instead of in my soul, and then I
wouldn’t get it cramped and shriveled up so!

What a roar of vulgar laughter there was! I destroyed the mongrel reptile
on the spot, but I smiled and smiled all the time I was detaching his scalp,
for the remark he made was good for an “Injun.”
Yes, we had learned in Salt Lake to be charged great prices without
letting the inward shudder appear on the surface—for even already we had
overheard and noted the tenor of conversations among drivers, conductors,
and hostlers, and finally among citizens of Salt Lake, until we were well
aware that these superior beings despised “emigrants.” We permitted no
tell-tale shudders and winces in our countenances, for we wanted to seem
pioneers, or Mormons, half-breeds, teamsters, stage-drivers, Mountain
Meadow assassins—anything in the world that the plains and Utah
respected and admired—but we were wretchedly ashamed of being
“emigrants,” and sorry enough that we had white shirts and could not swear
in the presence of ladies without looking the other way.
And many a time in Nevada, afterwards, we had occasion to remember
with humiliation that we were “emigrants,” and consequently a low and

inferior sort of creatures. Perhaps the reader has visited Utah, Nevada, or
California, even in these latter days, and while communing with himself
upon the sorrowful banishment of these countries from what he considers
“the world,” has had his wings clipped by finding that he is the one to be
pitied, and that there are entire populations around him ready and willing to
do it for him—yea, who are complacently doing it for him already,
wherever he steps his foot.
Poor thing, they are making fun of his hat; and the cut of his New York
coat; and his conscientiousness about his grammar; and his feeble profanity;
and his consumingly ludicrous ignorance of ores, shafts, tunnels, and other
things which he never saw before, and never felt enough interest in to read
about. And all the time that he is thinking what a sad fate it is to be exiled to
that far country, that lonely land, the citizens around him are looking down
on him with a blighting compassion because he is an “emigrant” instead of
that proudest and blessedest creature that exists on all the earth, a “FORTY-
NINER.”

The accustomed coach life began again, now, and by midnight it almost
seemed as if we never had been out of our snuggery among the mail sacks
at all. We had made one alteration, however. We had provided enough
bread, boiled ham and hard boiled eggs to last double the six hundred miles
of staging we had still to do.
And it was comfort in those succeeding days to sit up and contemplate
the majestic panorama of mountains and valleys spread out below us and
eat ham and hard boiled eggs while our spiritual natures revelled alternately
in rainbows, thunderstorms, and peerless sunsets. Nothing helps scenery
like ham and eggs. Ham and eggs, and after these a pipe—an old, rank,
delicious pipe—ham and eggs and scenery, a “down grade,” a flying coach,
a fragrant pipe and a contented heart—these make happiness. It is what all
the ages have struggled for.

CHAPTER XVIII.

At eight in the morning we reached the remnant and ruin of what had
been the important military station of “Camp Floyd,” some forty-five or
fifty miles from Salt Lake City. At four P.M. we had doubled our distance
and were ninety or a hundred miles from Salt Lake. And now we entered
upon one of that species of deserts whose concentrated hideousness shames
the diffused and diluted horrors of Sahara—an “alkali” desert. For sixty-
eight miles there was but one break in it. I do not remember that this was
really a break; indeed it seems to me that it was nothing but a watering
depot in the midst of the stretch of sixty-eight miles. If my memory serves
me, there was no well or spring at this place, but the water was hauled there
by mule and ox teams from the further side of the desert. There was a stage
station there. It was forty-five miles from the beginning of the desert, and
twenty-three from the end of it.
We plowed and dragged and groped along, the whole live-long night, and
at the end of this uncomfortable twelve hours we finished the forty-five
mile part of the desert and got to the stage station where the imported water
was. The sun was just rising. It was easy enough to cross a desert in the
night while we were asleep; and it was pleasant to reflect, in the morning,
that we in actual person had encountered an absolute desert and could
always speak knowingly of deserts in presence of the ignorant
thenceforward. And it was pleasant also to reflect that this was not an
obscure, back country desert, but a very celebrated one, the metropolis
itself, as you may say. All this was very well and very comfortable and
satisfactory—but now we were to cross a desert in daylight. This was fine
—novel—romantic—dramatically adventurous—this, indeed, was worth
living for, worth traveling for! We would write home all about it.
This enthusiasm, this stern thirst for adventure, wilted under the sultry
August sun and did not last above one hour. One poor little hour—and then

we were ashamed that we had “gushed” so. The poetry was all in the
anticipation—there is none in the reality. Imagine a vast, waveless ocean
stricken dead and turned to ashes; imagine this solemn waste tufted with
ash-dusted sage-bushes; imagine the lifeless silence and solitude that belong
to such a place; imagine a coach, creeping like a bug through the midst of
this shoreless level, and sending up tumbled volumes of dust as if it were a
bug that went by steam; imagine this aching monotony of toiling and
plowing kept up hour after hour, and the shore still as far away as ever,
apparently; imagine team, driver, coach and passengers so deeply coated
with ashes that they are all one colorless color; imagine ash-drifts roosting
above moustaches and eyebrows like snow accumulations on boughs and
bushes. This is the reality of it.
The sun beats down with dead, blistering, relentless malignity; the
perspiration is welling from every pore in man and beast, but scarcely a
sign of it finds its way to the surface—it is absorbed before it gets there;
there is not the faintest breath of air stirring; there is not a merciful shred of
cloud in all the brilliant firmament; there is not a living creature visible in
any direction whither one searches the blank level that stretches its
monotonous miles on every hand; there is not a sound—not a sigh—not a
whisper—not a buzz, or a whir of wings, or distant pipe of bird—not even a
sob from the lost souls that doubtless people that dead air. And so the
occasional sneezing of the resting mules, and the champing of the bits, grate
harshly on the grim stillness, not dissipating the spell but accenting it and
making one feel more lonesome and forsaken than before.
The mules, under violent swearing, coaxing and whip-cracking, would
make at stated intervals a “spurt,” and drag the coach a hundred or may be
two hundred yards, stirring up a billowy cloud of dust that rolled back,
enveloping the vehicle to the wheel-tops or higher, and making it seem
afloat in a fog. Then a rest followed, with the usual sneezing and bit-
champing. Then another “spurt” of a hundred yards and another rest at the
end of it. All day long we kept this up, without water for the mules and
without ever changing the team. At least we kept it up ten hours, which, I
take it, is a day, and a pretty honest one, in an alkali desert. It was from four
in the morning till two in the afternoon. And it was so hot! and so close! and
our water canteens went dry in the middle of the day and we got so thirsty!
It was so stupid and tiresome and dull! and the tedious hours did lag and
drag and limp along with such a cruel deliberation! It was so trying to give

one’s watch a good long undisturbed spell and then take it out and find that
it had been fooling away the time and not trying to get ahead any! The
alkali dust cut through our lips, it persecuted our eyes, it ate through the
delicate membranes and made our noses bleed and kept them bleeding—
and truly and seriously the romance all faded far away and disappeared, and
left the desert trip nothing but a harsh reality—a thirsty, sweltering, longing,
hateful reality!
Two miles and a quarter an hour for ten hours—that was what we
accomplished. It was hard to bring the comprehension away down to such a
snail-pace as that, when we had been used to making eight and ten miles an
hour. When we reached the station on the farther verge of the desert, we
were glad, for the first time, that the dictionary was along, because we
never could have found language to tell how glad we were, in any sort of
dictionary but an unabridged one with pictures in it. But there could not
have been found in a whole library of dictionaries language sufficient to tell
how tired those mules were after their twenty-three mile pull. To try to give
the reader an idea of how thirsty they were, would be to “gild refined gold
or paint the lily.”
Somehow, now that it is there, the quotation does not seem to fit—but no
matter, let it stay, anyhow. I think it is a graceful and attractive thing, and
therefore have tried time and time again to work it in where it would fit, but
could not succeed. These efforts have kept my mind distracted and ill at
ease, and made my narrative seem broken and disjointed, in places. Under
these circumstances it seems to me best to leave it in, as above, since this
will afford at least a temporary respite from the wear and tear of trying to
“lead up” to this really apt and beautiful quotation.

CHAPTER XIX.

On the morning of the sixteenth day out from St. Joseph we arrived at the
entrance of Rocky Canyon, two hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake. It
was along in this wild country somewhere, and far from any habitation of
white men, except the stage stations, that we came across the wretchedest
type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this writing. I refer to the Goshoot
Indians. From what we could see and all we could learn, they are very
considerably inferior to even the despised Digger Indians of California;
inferior to all races of savages on our continent; inferior to even the Terra
del Fuegans; inferior to the Hottentots, and actually inferior in some
respects to the Kytches of Africa. Indeed, I have been obliged to look the
bulky volumes of Wood’s “Uncivilized Races of Men” clear through in
order to find a savage tribe degraded enough to take rank with the
Goshoots. I find but one people fairly open to that shameful verdict. It is the
Bosjesmans (Bushmen) of South Africa. Such of the Goshoots as we saw,
along the road and hanging about the stations, were small, lean, “scrawny”
creatures; in complexion a dull black like the ordinary American negro;
their faces and hands bearing dirt which they had been hoarding and
accumulating for months, years, and even generations, according to the age
of the proprietor; a silent, sneaking, treacherous looking race; taking note of
everything, covertly, like all the other “Noble Red Men” that we (do not)
read about, and betraying no sign in their countenances; indolent,
everlastingly patient and tireless, like all other Indians; prideless beggars—
for if the beggar instinct were left out of an Indian he would not “go,” any
more than a clock without a pendulum; hungry, always hungry, and yet
never refusing anything that a hog would eat, though often eating what a
hog would decline; hunters, but having no higher ambition than to kill and
eat jack-ass rabbits, crickets and grasshoppers, and embezzle carrion from
the buzzards and cayotes; savages who, when asked if they have the
common Indian belief in a Great Spirit show a something which almost

amounts to emotion, thinking whiskey is referred to; a thin, scattering race
of almost naked black children, these Goshoots are, who produce nothing at
all, and have no villages, and no gatherings together into strictly defined
tribal communities—a people whose only shelter is a rag cast on a bush to
keep off a portion of the snow, and yet who inhabit one of the most rocky,
wintry, repulsive wastes that our country or any other can exhibit.

The Bushmen and our Goshoots are manifestly descended from the self-
same gorilla, or kangaroo, or Norway rat, whichever animal-Adam the
Darwinians trace them to.
One would as soon expect the rabbits to fight as the Goshoots, and yet
they used to live off the offal and refuse of the stations a few months and
then come some dark night when no mischief was expected, and burn down
the buildings and kill the men from ambush as they rushed out. And once,
in the night, they attacked the stage-coach when a District Judge, of Nevada
Territory, was the only passenger, and with their first volley of arrows (and
a bullet or two) they riddled the stage curtains, wounded a horse or two and
mortally wounded the driver. The latter was full of pluck, and so was his
passenger. At the driver’s call Judge Mott swung himself out, clambered to
the box and seized the reins of the team, and away they plunged, through
the racing mob of skeletons and under a hurtling storm of missiles. The
stricken driver had sunk down on the boot as soon as he was wounded, but

had held on to the reins and said he would manage to keep hold of them
until relieved.
And after they were taken from his relaxing grasp, he lay with his head
between Judge Mott’s feet, and tranquilly gave directions about the road; he
said he believed he could live till the miscreants were outrun and left
behind, and that if he managed that, the main difficulty would be at an end,
and then if the Judge drove so and so (giving directions about bad places in
the road, and general course) he would reach the next station without
trouble. The Judge distanced the enemy and at last rattled up to the station
and knew that the night’s perils were done; but there was no comrade-in-
arms for him to rejoice with, for the soldierly driver was dead.

Let us forget that we have been saying harsh things about the Overland
drivers, now. The disgust which the Goshoots gave me, a disciple of Cooper
and a worshipper of the Red Man—even of the scholarly savages in the
“Last of the Mohicans” who are fittingly associated with backwoodsmen
who divide each sentence into two equal parts: one part critically
grammatical, refined and choice of language, and the other part just such an
attempt to talk like a hunter or a mountaineer, as a Broadway clerk might

make after eating an edition of Emerson Bennett’s works and studying
frontier life at the Bowery Theatre a couple of weeks—I say that the nausea
which the Goshoots gave me, an Indian worshipper, set me to examining
authorities, to see if perchance I had been over-estimating the Red Man
while viewing him through the mellow moonshine of romance. The
revelations that came were disenchanting. It was curious to see how quickly
the paint and tinsel fell away from him and left him treacherous, filthy and
repulsive—and how quickly the evidences accumulated that wherever one
finds an Indian tribe he has only found Goshoots more or less modified by
circumstances and surroundings—but Goshoots, after all. They deserve
pity, poor creatures; and they can have mine—at this distance. Nearer by,
they never get anybody’s.
There is an impression abroad that the Baltimore and Washington
Railroad Company and many of its employees are Goshoots; but it is an
error. There is only a plausible resemblance, which, while it is apt enough to
mislead the ignorant, cannot deceive parties who have contemplated both
tribes. But seriously, it was not only poor wit, but very wrong to start the
report referred to above; for however innocent the motive may have been,
the necessary effect was to injure the reputation of a class who have a hard
enough time of it in the pitiless deserts of the Rocky Mountains, Heaven
knows! If we cannot find it in our hearts to give those poor naked creatures
our Christian sympathy and compassion, in God’s name let us at least not
throw mud at them.

CHAPTER XX.

On the seventeenth day we passed the highest mountain peaks we had yet
seen, and although the day was very warm the night that followed upon its
heels was wintry cold and blankets were next to useless.
On the eighteenth day we encountered the eastward-bound telegraph-
constructors at Reese River station and sent a message to his Excellency
Gov. Nye at Carson City (distant one hundred and fifty-six miles).
On the nineteenth day we crossed the Great American Desert—forty
memorable miles of bottomless sand, into which the coach wheels sunk
from six inches to a foot. We worked our passage most of the way across.
That is to say, we got out and walked. It was a dreary pull and a long and
thirsty one, for we had no water. From one extremity of this desert to the
other, the road was white with the bones of oxen and horses. It would
hardly be an exaggeration to say that we could have walked the forty miles
and set our feet on a bone at every step! The desert was one prodigious
graveyard. And the log-chains, wagon tyres, and rotting wrecks of vehicles
were almost as thick as the bones. I think we saw log-chains enough rusting
there in the desert, to reach across any State in the Union. Do not these
relics suggest something of an idea of the fearful suffering and privation the
early emigrants to California endured?
At the border of the Desert lies Carson Lake, or The “Sink” of the
Carson, a shallow, melancholy sheet of water some eighty or a hundred
miles in circumference. Carson River empties into it and is lost—sinks
mysteriously into the earth and never appears in the light of the sun again—
for the lake has no outlet whatever.
There are several rivers in Nevada, and they all have this mysterious fate.
They end in various lakes or “sinks,” and that is the last of them. Carson
Lake, Humboldt Lake, Walker Lake, Mono Lake, are all great sheets of
water without any visible outlet. Water is always flowing into them; none is

ever seen to flow out of them, and yet they remain always level full, neither
receding nor overflowing. What they do with their surplus is only known to
the Creator.
On the western verge of the Desert we halted a moment at Ragtown. It
consisted of one log house and is not set down on the map.
This reminds me of a circumstance. Just after we left Julesburg, on the
Platte, I was sitting with the driver, and he said:
“I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen
to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving
Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to
lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced up
and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s
coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then
he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he warn’t in as
much of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, ‘Keep your
seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time’—and you bet you he did, too,
what was left of him!”

A day or two after that we picked up a Denver man at the cross roads,
and he told us a good deal about the country and the Gregory Diggings. He
seemed a very entertaining person and a man well posted in the affairs of
Colorado. By and by he remarked:
“I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen
to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving
Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to
lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced up
and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s
coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then
he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he warn’t in as
much of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, ‘Keep your
seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!’—and you bet you he did, too,
what was left of him!”
At Fort Bridger, some days after this, we took on board a cavalry
sergeant, a very proper and soldierly person indeed. From no other man
during the whole journey, did we gather such a store of concise and well-
arranged military information. It was surprising to find in the desolate wilds
of our country a man so thoroughly acquainted with everything useful to
know in his line of life, and yet of such inferior rank and unpretentious
bearing. For as much as three hours we listened to him with unabated
interest. Finally he got upon the subject of trans-continental travel, and
presently said:
“I can tell you a very laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen
to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving
Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to
lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced up
and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s
coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then
he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he warn’t in as
much of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, ‘Keep your

seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!’—and you bet you he did, too,
what was left of him!”
When we were eight hours out from Salt Lake City a Mormon preacher
got in with us at a way station—a gentle, soft-spoken, kindly man, and one
whom any stranger would warm to at first sight. I can never forget the
pathos that was in his voice as he told, in simple language, the story of his
people’s wanderings and unpitied sufferings. No pulpit eloquence was ever
so moving and so beautiful as this outcast’s picture of the first Mormon
pilgrimage across the plains, struggling sorrowfully onward to the land of
its banishment and marking its desolate way with graves and watering it
with tears. His words so wrought upon us that it was a relief to us all when
the conversation drifted into a more cheerful channel and the natural
features of the curious country we were in came under treatment. One
matter after another was pleasantly discussed, and at length the stranger
said:
“I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen
to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving
Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to
lecture in Placerville, and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank
Monk cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced
up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of
Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage,
and then he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he
warn’t in as much of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said,
‘Keep your seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!’—and you bet you
bet you he did, too, what was left of him!”
Ten miles out of Ragtown we found a poor wanderer who had lain down
to die. He had walked as long as he could, but his limbs had failed him at
last. Hunger and fatigue had conquered him. It would have been inhuman to
leave him there. We paid his fare to Carson and lifted him into the coach. It
was some little time before he showed any very decided signs of life; but by
dint of chafing him and pouring brandy between his lips we finally brought
him to a languid consciousness. Then we fed him a little, and by and by he
seemed to comprehend the situation and a grateful light softened his eye.
We made his mail-sack bed as comfortable as possible, and constructed a
pillow for him with our coats. He seemed very thankful. Then he looked up

in our faces, and said in a feeble voice that had a tremble of honest emotion
in it:
“Gentlemen, I know not who you are, but you have saved my life; and
although I can never be able to repay you for it, I feel that I can at least
make one hour of your long journey lighter. I take it you are strangers to
this great thorough fare, but I am entirely familiar with it. In this connection
I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it.
Horace Greeley——”

I said, impressively:
“Suffering stranger, proceed at your peril. You see in me the melancholy
wreck of a once stalwart and magnificent manhood. What has brought me
to this? That thing which you are about to tell. Gradually but surely, that
tiresome old anecdote has sapped my strength, undermined my constitution,
withered my life. Pity my helplessness. Spare me only just this once, and
tell me about young George Washington and his little hatchet for a change.”
We were saved. But not so the invalid. In trying to retain the anecdote in
his system he strained himself and died in our arms.
I am aware, now, that I ought not to have asked of the sturdiest citizen of
all that region, what I asked of that mere shadow of a man; for, after seven
years’ residence on the Pacific coast, I know that no passenger or driver on

the Overland ever corked that anecdote in, when a stranger was by, and
survived. Within a period of six years I crossed and recrossed the Sierras
between Nevada and California thirteen times by stage and listened to that
deathless incident four hundred and eighty-one or eighty-two times. I have
the list somewhere. Drivers always told it, conductors told it, landlords told
it, chance passengers told it, the very Chinamen and vagrant Indians
recounted it. I have had the same driver tell it to me two or three times in
the same afternoon. It has come to me in all the multitude of tongues that
Babel bequeathed to earth, and flavored with whiskey, brandy, beer,
cologne, sozodont, tobacco, garlic, onions, grasshoppers—everything that
has a fragrance to it through all the long list of things that are gorged or
guzzled by the sons of men. I never have smelt any anecdote as often as I
have smelt that one; never have smelt any anecdote that smelt so variegated
as that one. And you never could learn to know it by its smell, because
every time you thought you had learned the smell of it, it would turn up
with a different smell. Bayard Taylor has written about this hoary anecdote,
Richardson has published it; so have Jones, Smith, Johnson, Ross Browne,
and every other correspondence-inditing being that ever set his foot upon
the great overland road anywhere between Julesburg and San Francisco;
and I have heard that it is in the Talmud. I have seen it in print in nine
different foreign languages; I have been told that it is employed in the
inquisition in Rome; and I now learn with regret that it is going to be set to
music. I do not think that such things are right.
Stage-coaching on the Overland is no more, and stage drivers are a race
defunct. I wonder if they bequeathed that bald-headed anecdote to their
successors, the railroad brakemen and conductors, and if these latter still
persecute the helpless passenger with it until he concludes, as did many a
tourist of other days, that the real grandeurs of the Pacific coast are not Yo
Semite and the Big Trees, but Hank Monk and his adventure with Horace
Greeley.

[And what makes that worn anecdote the more
aggravating, is, that the adventure it celebrates never
occurred. If it were a good anecdote, that seeming demerit
would be its chiefest virtue, for creative power belongs to
greatness; but what ought to be done to a man who would
wantonly contrive so flat a one as this? If I were to suggest

what ought to be done to him, I should be called extravagant
—but what does the sixteenth chapter of Daniel say? Aha!]

CHAPTER XXI.

We were approaching the end of our long journey. It was the morning of
the twentieth day. At noon we would reach Carson City, the capital of
Nevada Territory. We were not glad, but sorry. It had been a fine pleasure
trip; we had fed fat on wonders every day; we were now well accustomed to
stage life, and very fond of it; so the idea of coming to a stand-still and
settling down to a humdrum existence in a village was not agreeable, but on
the contrary depressing.
Visibly our new home was a desert, walled in by barren, snow-clad
mountains. There was not a tree in sight. There was no vegetation but the
endless sage-brush and greasewood. All nature was gray with it. We were
plowing through great deeps of powdery alkali dust that rose in thick clouds
and floated across the plain like smoke from a burning house.
We were coated with it like millers; so were the coach, the mules, the
mail-bags, the driver—we and the sage-brush and the other scenery were all
one monotonous color. Long trains of freight wagons in the distance
enveloped in ascending masses of dust suggested pictures of prairies on
fire. These teams and their masters were the only life we saw. Otherwise we
moved in the midst of solitude, silence and desolation. Every twenty steps
we passed the skeleton of some dead beast of burthen, with its dust-coated
skin stretched tightly over its empty ribs. Frequently a solemn raven sat
upon the skull or the hips and contemplated the passing coach with
meditative serenity.

By and by Carson City was pointed out to us. It nestled in the edge of a
great plain and was a sufficient number of miles away to look like an
assemblage of mere white spots in the shadow of a grim range of mountains
overlooking it, whose summits seemed lifted clear out of companionship
and consciousness of earthly things.
We arrived, disembarked, and the stage went on. It was a “wooden”
town; its population two thousand souls. The main street consisted of four
or five blocks of little white frame stores which were too high to sit down
on, but not too high for various other purposes; in fact, hardly high enough.
They were packed close together, side by side, as if room were scarce in
that mighty plain.
The sidewalk was of boards that were more or less loose and inclined to
rattle when walked upon. In the middle of the town, opposite the stores, was
the “plaza” which is native to all towns beyond the Rocky Mountains—a
large, unfenced, level vacancy, with a liberty pole in it, and very useful as a
place for public auctions, horse trades, and mass meetings, and likewise for
teamsters to camp in. Two other sides of the plaza were faced by stores,
offices and stables.
The rest of Carson City was pretty scattering.

We were introduced to several citizens, at the stage-office and on the way
up to the Governor’s from the hotel—among others, to a Mr. Harris, who
was on horseback; he began to say something, but interrupted himself with
the remark:
“I’ll have to get you to excuse me a minute; yonder is the witness that
swore I helped to rob the California coach—a piece of impertinent
intermeddling, sir, for I am not even acquainted with the man.”
Then he rode over and began to rebuke the stranger with a six-shooter,
and the stranger began to explain with another. When the pistols were
emptied, the stranger resumed his work (mending a whip-lash), and Mr.
Harris rode by with a polite nod, homeward bound, with a bullet through
one of his lungs, and several in his hips; and from them issued little rivulets
of blood that coursed down the horse’s sides and made the animal look
quite picturesque. I never saw Harris shoot a man after that but it recalled to
mind that first day in Carson.
This was all we saw that day, for it was two o’clock, now, and according
to custom the daily “Washoe Zephyr” set in; a soaring dust-drift about the
size of the United States set up edgewise came with it, and the capital of
Nevada Territory disappeared from view.
Still, there were sights to be seen which were not wholly uninteresting to
new comers; for the vast dust cloud was thickly freckled with things strange
to the upper air—things living and dead, that flitted hither and thither, going
and coming, appearing and disappearing among the rolling billows of dust
—hats, chickens and parasols sailing in the remote heavens; blankets, tin
signs, sage-brush and shingles a shade lower; door-mats and buffalo robes
lower still; shovels and coal scuttles on the next grade; glass doors, cats and
little children on the next; disrupted lumber yards, light buggies and
wheelbarrows on the next; and down only thirty or forty feet above ground
was a scurrying storm of emigrating roofs and vacant lots.

It was something to see that much. I could have seen more, if I could
have kept the dust out of my eyes.
But seriously a Washoe wind is by no means a trifling matter. It blows
flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs occasionally, rolls up tin ones like
sheet music, now and then blows a stage coach over and spills the
passengers; and tradition says the reason there are so many bald people
there, is, that the wind blows the hair off their heads while they are looking
skyward after their hats. Carson streets seldom look inactive on Summer
afternoons, because there are so many citizens skipping around their
escaping hats, like chambermaids trying to head off a spider.
The “Washoe Zephyr” (Washoe is a pet nickname for Nevada) is a
peculiar Scriptural wind, in that no man knoweth “whence it cometh.” That
is to say, where it originates. It comes right over the mountains from the
West, but when one crosses the ridge he does not find any of it on the other
side! It probably is manufactured on the mountain-top for the occasion, and
starts from there. It is a pretty regular wind, in the summer time. Its office
hours are from two in the afternoon till two the next morning; and anybody
venturing abroad during those twelve hours needs to allow for the wind or
he will bring up a mile or two to leeward of the point he is aiming at. And
yet the first complaint a Washoe visitor to San Francisco makes, is that the
sea winds blow so, there! There is a good deal of human nature in that.

We found the state palace of the Governor of Nevada Territory to consist
of a white frame one-story house with two small rooms in it and a stanchion
supported shed in front—for grandeur—it compelled the respect of the
citizen and inspired the Indians with awe. The newly arrived Chief and
Associate Justices of the Territory, and other machinery of the government,
were domiciled with less splendor. They were boarding around privately,
and had their offices in their bedrooms.

The Secretary and I took quarters in the “ranch” of a worthy French lady
by the name of Bridget O’Flannigan, a camp follower of his Excellency the
Governor. She had known him in his prosperity as commander-in-chief of
the Metropolitan Police of New York, and she would not desert him in his
adversity as Governor of Nevada.
Our room was on the lower floor, facing the plaza, and when we had got
our bed, a small table, two chairs, the government fire-proof safe, and the
Unabridged Dictionary into it, there was still room enough left for a visitor
—may be two, but not without straining the walls. But the walls could stand
it—at least the partitions could, for they consisted simply of one thickness
of white “cotton domestic” stretched from corner to corner of the room.
This was the rule in Carson—any other kind of partition was the rare
exception. And if you stood in a dark room and your neighbors in the next
had lights, the shadows on your canvas told queer secrets sometimes! Very
often these partitions were made of old flour sacks basted together; and then

the difference between the common herd and the aristocracy was, that the
common herd had unornamented sacks, while the walls of the aristocrat
were overpowering with rudimental fresco—i.e., red and blue mill brands
on the flour sacks.

Occasionally, also, the better classes embellished their canvas by pasting
pictures from Harper’s Weekly on them. In many cases, too, the wealthy and
the cultured rose to spittoons and other evidences of a sumptuous and
luxurious taste. [Washoe people take a joke so hard that I must explain that
the above description was only the rule; there were many honorable
exceptions in Carson—plastered ceilings and houses that had considerable
furniture in them.—M. T.]
We had a carpet and a genuine queen’s-ware washbowl. Consequently we
were hated without reserve by the other tenants of the O’Flannigan “ranch.”
When we added a painted oilcloth window curtain, we simply took our lives
into our own hands. To prevent bloodshed I removed up stairs and took up
quarters with the untitled plebeians in one of the fourteen white pine cot-
bedsteads that stood in two long ranks in the one sole room of which the
second story consisted.

It was a jolly company, the fourteen. They were principally voluntary
camp-followers of the Governor, who had joined his retinue by their own
election at New York and San Francisco and came along, feeling that in the
scuffle for little territorial crumbs and offices they could not make their
condition more precarious than it was, and might reasonably expect to make
it better. They were popularly known as the “Irish Brigade,” though there
were only four or five Irishmen among all the Governor’s retainers.

His good-natured Excellency was much annoyed at the gossip his
henchmen created—especially when there arose a rumor that they were
paid assassins of his, brought along to quietly reduce the democratic vote
when desirable!
Mrs. O’Flannigan was boarding and lodging them at ten dollars a week
apiece, and they were cheerfully giving their notes for it. They were
perfectly satisfied, but Bridget presently found that notes that could not be
discounted were but a feeble constitution for a Carson boarding-house. So
she began to harry the Governor to find employment for the “Brigade.” Her
importunities and theirs together drove him to a gentle desperation at last,
and he finally summoned the Brigade to the presence. Then, said he:
“Gentlemen, I have planned a lucrative and useful service for you—a
service which will provide you with recreation amid noble landscapes, and
afford you never ceasing opportunities for enriching your minds by

observation and study. I want you to survey a railroad from Carson City
westward to a certain point! When the legislature meets I will have the
necessary bill passed and the remuneration arranged.”
“What, a railroad over the Sierra Nevada Mountains?”
“Well, then, survey it eastward to a certain point!”
He converted them into surveyors, chain-bearers and so on, and turned
them loose in the desert. It was “recreation” with a vengeance! Recreation
on foot, lugging chains through sand and sage-brush, under a sultry sun and
among cattle bones, cayotes and tarantulas.

“Romantic adventure” could go no further. They surveyed very slowly,
very deliberately, very carefully. They returned every night during the first
week, dusty, footsore, tired, and hungry, but very jolly. They brought in
great store of prodigious hairy spiders—tarantulas—and imprisoned them
in covered tumblers up stairs in the “ranch.” After the first week, they had
to camp on the field, for they were getting well eastward. They made a good
many inquiries as to the location of that indefinite “certain point,” but got

no information. At last, to a peculiarly urgent inquiry of “How far
eastward?” Governor Nye telegraphed back:
“To the Atlantic Ocean, blast you!—and then bridge it and go on!”
This brought back the dusty toilers, who sent in a report and ceased from
their labors. The Governor was always comfortable about it; he said Mrs.
O’Flannigan would hold him for the Brigade’s board anyhow, and he
intended to get what entertainment he could out of the boys; he said, with
his old-time pleasant twinkle, that he meant to survey them into Utah and
then telegraph Brigham to hang them for trespass!
The surveyors brought back more tarantulas with them, and so we had
quite a menagerie arranged along the shelves of the room. Some of these
spiders could straddle over a common saucer with their hairy, muscular
legs, and when their feelings were hurt, or their dignity offended, they were
the wickedest-looking desperadoes the animal world can furnish. If their
glass prison-houses were touched ever so lightly they were up and spoiling
for a fight in a minute. Starchy?—proud? Indeed, they would take up a
straw and pick their teeth like a member of Congress. There was as usual a
furious “zephyr” blowing the first night of the brigade’s return, and about
midnight the roof of an adjoining stable blew off, and a corner of it came
crashing through the side of our ranch. There was a simultaneous
awakening, and a tumultuous muster of the brigade in the dark, and a
general tumbling and sprawling over each other in the narrow aisle between
the bedrows. In the midst of the turmoil, Bob H——sprung up out of a
sound sleep, and knocked down a shelf with his head. Instantly he shouted:
“Turn out, boys—the tarantulas is loose!”

No warning ever sounded so dreadful. Nobody tried, any longer, to leave
the room, lest he might step on a tarantula. Every man groped for a trunk or
a bed, and jumped on it. Then followed the strangest silence—a silence of
grisly suspense it was, too—waiting, expectancy, fear. It was as dark as
pitch, and one had to imagine the spectacle of those fourteen scant-clad men
roosting gingerly on trunks and beds, for not a thing could be seen. Then
came occasional little interruptions of the silence, and one could recognize
a man and tell his locality by his voice, or locate any other sound a sufferer
made by his gropings or changes of position. The occasional voices were
not given to much speaking—you simply heard a gentle ejaculation of
“Ow!” followed by a solid thump, and you knew the gentleman had felt a
hairy blanket or something touch his bare skin and had skipped from a bed
to the floor. Another silence. Presently you would hear a gasping voice say:
“Su-su-something’s crawling up the back of my neck!”
Every now and then you could hear a little subdued scramble and a
sorrowful “O Lord!” and then you knew that somebody was getting away
from something he took for a tarantula, and not losing any time about it,
either. Directly a voice in the corner rang out wild and clear:
“I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” [Pause, and probable change of
circumstances.] “No, he’s got me! Oh, ain’t they never going to fetch a
lantern!”

The lantern came at that moment, in the hands of Mrs. O’Flannigan,
whose anxiety to know the amount of damage done by the assaulting roof
had not prevented her waiting a judicious interval, after getting out of bed
and lighting up, to see if the wind was done, now, up stairs, or had a larger
contract.
The landscape presented when the lantern flashed into the room was
picturesque, and might have been funny to some people, but was not to us.
Although we were perched so strangely upon boxes, trunks and beds, and
so strangely attired, too, we were too earnestly distressed and too genuinely
miserable to see any fun about it, and there was not the semblance of a
smile anywhere visible. I know I am not capable of suffering more than I
did during those few minutes of suspense in the dark, surrounded by those
creeping, bloody-minded tarantulas. I had skipped from bed to bed and
from box to box in a cold agony, and every time I touched anything that
was furzy I fancied I felt the fangs. I had rather go to war than live that
episode over again. Nobody was hurt. The man who thought a tarantula had
“got him” was mistaken—only a crack in a box had caught his finger. Not
one of those escaped tarantulas was ever seen again. There were ten or
twelve of them. We took candles and hunted the place high and low for
them, but with no success. Did we go back to bed then? We did nothing of
the kind. Money could not have persuaded us to do it. We sat up the rest of
the night playing cribbage and keeping a sharp lookout for the enemy.

CHAPTER XXII.

It was the end of August, and the skies were cloudless and the weather
superb. In two or three weeks I had grown wonderfully fascinated with the
curious new country and concluded to put off my return to “the States”
awhile. I had grown well accustomed to wearing a damaged slouch hat,
blue woolen shirt, and pants crammed into boot-tops, and gloried in the
absence of coat, vest and braces. I felt rowdyish and “bully,” (as the
historian Josephus phrases it, in his fine chapter upon the destruction of the
Temple). It seemed to me that nothing could be so fine and so romantic. I
had become an officer of the government, but that was for mere sublimity.
The office was an unique sinecure. I had nothing to do and no salary. I was
private Secretary to his majesty the Secretary and there was not yet writing
enough for two of us. So Johnny K——and I devoted our time to
amusement. He was the young son of an Ohio nabob and was out there for
recreation. He got it. We had heard a world of talk about the marvellous
beauty of Lake Tahoe, and finally curiosity drove us thither to see it. Three
or four members of the Brigade had been there and located some timber
lands on its shores and stored up a quantity of provisions in their camp. We
strapped a couple of blankets on our shoulders and took an axe apiece and
started—for we intended to take up a wood ranch or so ourselves and
become wealthy. We were on foot. The reader will find it advantageous to
go horseback. We were told that the distance was eleven miles. We tramped
a long time on level ground, and then toiled laboriously up a mountain
about a thousand miles high and looked over. No lake there. We descended
on the other side, crossed the valley and toiled up another mountain three or
four thousand miles high, apparently, and looked over again. No lake yet.
We sat down tired and perspiring, and hired a couple of Chinamen to curse
those people who had beguiled us. Thus refreshed, we presently resumed
the march with renewed vigor and determination. We plodded on, two or
three hours longer, and at last the Lake burst upon us—a noble sheet of blue

water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and
walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three
thousand feet higher still! It was a vast oval, and one would have to use up
eighty or a hundred good miles in traveling around it. As it lay there with
the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface
I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords.

We found the small skiff belonging to the Brigade boys, and without loss
of time set out across a deep bend of the lake toward the landmarks that
signified the locality of the camp. I got Johnny to row—not because I mind
exertion myself, but because it makes me sick to ride backwards when I am
at work. But I steered. A three-mile pull brought us to the camp just as the
night fell, and we stepped ashore very tired and wolfishly hungry. In a
“cache” among the rocks we found the provisions and the cooking utensils,
and then, all fatigued as I was, I sat down on a boulder and superintended
while Johnny gathered wood and cooked supper. Many a man who had
gone through what I had, would have wanted to rest.
It was a delicious supper—hot bread, fried bacon, and black coffee. It
was a delicious solitude we were in, too. Three miles away was a saw- mill
and some workmen, but there were not fifteen other human beings
throughout the wide circumference of the lake. As the darkness closed

down and the stars came out and spangled the great mirror with jewels, we
smoked meditatively in the solemn hush and forgot our troubles and our
pains. In due time we spread our blankets in the warm sand between two
large boulders and soon feel asleep, careless of the procession of ants that
passed in through rents in our clothing and explored our persons. Nothing
could disturb the sleep that fettered us, for it had been fairly earned, and if
our consciences had any sins on them they had to adjourn court for that
night, any way. The wind rose just as we were losing consciousness, and we
were lulled to sleep by the beating of the surf upon the shore.
It is always very cold on that lake shore in the night, but we had plenty of
blankets and were warm enough. We never moved a muscle all night, but
waked at early dawn in the original positions, and got up at once,
thoroughly refreshed, free from soreness, and brim full of friskiness. There
is no end of wholesome medicine in such an experience. That morning we
could have whipped ten such people as we were the day before—sick ones
at any rate. But the world is slow, and people will go to “water cures” and
“movement cures” and to foreign lands for health. Three months of camp
life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor,
and give him an appetite like an alligator. I do not mean the oldest and
driest mummies, of course, but the fresher ones. The air up there in the
clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn’t it
be?—it is the same the angels breathe. I think that hardly any amount of
fatigue can be gathered together that a man cannot sleep off in one night on
the sand by its side. Not under a roof, but under the sky; it seldom or never
rains there in the summer time. I know a man who went there to die. But he
made a failure of it. He was a skeleton when he came, and could barely
stand. He had no appetite, and did nothing but read tracts and reflect on the
future. Three months later he was sleeping out of doors regularly, eating all
he could hold, three times a day, and chasing game over mountains three
thousand feet high for recreation. And he was a skeleton no longer, but
weighed part of a ton. This is no fancy sketch, but the truth. His disease was
consumption. I confidently commend his experience to other skeletons.

I superintended again, and as soon as we had eaten breakfast we got in
the boat and skirted along the lake shore about three miles and
disembarked. We liked the appearance of the place, and so we claimed
some three hundred acres of it and stuck our “notices” on a tree. It was
yellow pine timber land—a dense forest of trees a hundred feet high and
from one to five feet through at the butt. It was necessary to fence our
property or we could not hold it. That is to say, it was necessary to cut down
trees here and there and make them fall in such a way as to form a sort of
enclosure (with pretty wide gaps in it). We cut down three trees apiece, and
found it such heart-breaking work that we decided to “rest our case” on
those; if they held the property, well and good; if they didn’t, let the
property spill out through the gaps and go; it was no use to work ourselves
to death merely to save a few acres of land. Next day we came back to build
a house—for a house was also necessary, in order to hold the property.

We decided to build a substantial log-house and excite the envy of the
Brigade boys; but by the time we had cut and trimmed the first log it
seemed unnecessary to be so elaborate, and so we concluded to build it of
saplings. However, two saplings, duly cut and trimmed, compelled
recognition of the fact that a still modester architecture would satisfy the
law, and so we concluded to build a “brush” house. We devoted the next
day to this work, but we did so much “sitting around” and discussing, that
by the middle of the afternoon we had achieved only a half-way sort of
affair which one of us had to watch while the other cut brush, lest if both
turned our backs we might not be able to find it again, it had such a strong
family resemblance to the surrounding vegetation. But we were satisfied
with it.

We were land owners now, duly seized and possessed, and within the
protection of the law. Therefore we decided to take up our residence on our
own domain and enjoy that large sense of independence which only such an
experience can bring. Late the next afternoon, after a good long rest, we
sailed away from the Brigade camp with all the provisions and cooking
utensils we could carry off—borrow is the more accurate word—and just as
the night was falling we beached the boat at our own landing.

CHAPTER XXIII.

If there is any life that is happier than the life we led on our timber ranch
for the next two or three weeks, it must be a sort of life which I have not
read of in books or experienced in person. We did not see a human being
but ourselves during the time, or hear any sounds but those that were made
by the wind and the waves, the sighing of the pines, and now and then the
far-off thunder of an avalanche. The forest about us was dense and cool, the
sky above us was cloudless and brilliant with sunshine, the broad lake
before us was glassy and clear, or rippled and breezy, or black and storm-
tossed, according to Nature’s mood; and its circling border of mountain
domes, clothed with forests, scarred with land-slides, cloven by cañons and
valleys, and helmeted with glittering snow, fitly framed and finished the
noble picture. The view was always fascinating, bewitching, entrancing.
The eye was never tired of gazing, night or day, in calm or storm; it suffered
but one grief, and that was that it could not look always, but must close
sometimes in sleep.
We slept in the sand close to the water’s edge, between two protecting
boulders, which took care of the stormy night-winds for us. We never took
any paregoric to make us sleep. At the first break of dawn we were always
up and running foot-races to tone down excess of physical vigor and
exuberance of spirits. That is, Johnny was—but I held his hat. While
smoking the pipe of peace after breakfast we watched the sentinel peaks put
on the glory of the sun, and followed the conquering light as it swept down
among the shadows, and set the captive crags and forests free. We watched
the tinted pictures grow and brighten upon the water till every little detail of
forest, precipice and pinnacle was wrought in and finished, and the miracle
of the enchanter complete. Then to “business.”

That is, drifting around in the boat. We were on the north shore. There,
the rocks on the bottom are sometimes gray, sometimes white. This gives
the marvelous transparency of the water a fuller advantage than it has
elsewhere on the lake. We usually pushed out a hundred yards or so from
shore, and then lay down on the thwarts, in the sun, and let the boat drift by
the hour whither it would. We seldom talked. It interrupted the Sabbath
stillness, and marred the dreams the luxurious rest and indolence brought.
The shore all along was indented with deep, curved bays and coves,
bordered by narrow sand-beaches; and where the sand ended, the steep
mountain-sides rose right up aloft into space—rose up like a vast wall a
little out of the perpendicular, and thickly wooded with tall pines.
So singularly clear was the water, that where it was only twenty or thirty
feet deep the bottom was so perfectly distinct that the boat seemed floating
in the air! Yes, where it was even eighty feet deep. Every little pebble was
distinct, every speckled trout, every hand’s-breadth of sand. Often, as we
lay on our faces, a granite boulder, as large as a village church, would start
out of the bottom apparently, and seem climbing up rapidly to the surface,
till presently it threatened to touch our faces, and we could not resist the
impulse to seize an oar and avert the danger. But the boat would float on,
and the boulder descend again, and then we could see that when we had
been exactly above it, it must still have been twenty or thirty feet below the
surface. Down through the transparency of these great depths, the water was

not merely transparent, but dazzlingly, brilliantly so. All objects seen
through it had a bright, strong vividness, not only of outline, but of every
minute detail, which they would not have had when seen simply through the
same depth of atmosphere. So empty and airy did all spaces seem below us,
and so strong was the sense of floating high aloft in mid-nothingness, that
we called these boat-excursions “balloon-voyages.”
We fished a good deal, but we did not average one fish a week. We could
see trout by the thousand winging about in the emptiness under us, or
sleeping in shoals on the bottom, but they would not bite—they could see
the line too plainly, perhaps. We frequently selected the trout we wanted,
and rested the bait patiently and persistently on the end of his nose at a
depth of eighty feet, but he would only shake it off with an annoyed
manner, and shift his position.
We bathed occasionally, but the water was rather chilly, for all it looked
so sunny. Sometimes we rowed out to the “blue water,” a mile or two from
shore. It was as dead blue as indigo there, because of the immense depth.
By official measurement the lake in its centre is one thousand five hundred
and twenty-five feet deep!
Sometimes, on lazy afternoons, we lolled on the sand in camp, and
smoked pipes and read some old well-worn novels. At night, by the camp-
fire, we played euchre and seven-up to strengthen the mind—and played
them with cards so greasy and defaced that only a whole summer’s
acquaintance with them could enable the student to tell the ace of clubs
from the jack of diamonds.
We never slept in our “house.” It never recurred to us, for one thing; and
besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough. We did not
wish to strain it.
By and by our provisions began to run short, and we went back to the old
camp and laid in a new supply. We were gone all day, and reached home
again about night-fall, pretty tired and hungry. While Johnny was carrying
the main bulk of the provisions up to our “house” for future use, I took the
loaf of bread, some slices of bacon, and the coffee-pot, ashore, set them
down by a tree, lit a fire, and went back to the boat to get the frying-pan.
While I was at this, I heard a shout from Johnny, and looking up I saw that
my fire was galloping all over the premises! Johnny was on the other side

of it. He had to run through the flames to get to the lake shore, and then we
stood helpless and watched the devastation.
The ground was deeply carpeted with dry pine-needles, and the fire
touched them off as if they were gunpowder. It was wonderful to see with
what fierce speed the tall sheet of flame traveled! My coffee-pot was gone,
and everything with it. In a minute and a half the fire seized upon a dense
growth of dry manzanita chapparal six or eight feet high, and then the
roaring and popping and crackling was something terrific. We were driven
to the boat by the intense heat, and there we remained, spell-bound.

Within half an hour all before us was a tossing, blinding tempest of
flame! It went surging up adjacent ridges—surmounted them and
disappeared in the cañons beyond—burst into view upon higher and farther
ridges, presently—shed a grander illumination abroad, and dove again—
flamed out again, directly, higher and still higher up the mountain-side
threw out skirmishing parties of fire here and there, and sent them trailing
their crimson spirals away among remote ramparts and ribs and gorges, till
as far as the eye could reach the lofty mountain-fronts were webbed as it
were with a tangled network of red lava streams. Away across the water the
crags and domes were lit with a ruddy glare, and the firmament above was a
reflected hell!
Every feature of the spectacle was repeated in the glowing mirror of the
lake! Both pictures were sublime, both were beautiful; but that in the lake
had a bewildering richness about it that enchanted the eye and held it with
the stronger fascination.
We sat absorbed and motionless through four long hours. We never
thought of supper, and never felt fatigue. But at eleven o’clock the
conflagration had traveled beyond our range of vision, and then darkness
stole down upon the landscape again.
Hunger asserted itself now, but there was nothing to eat. The provisions
were all cooked, no doubt, but we did not go to see. We were homeless
wanderers again, without any property. Our fence was gone, our house
burned down; no insurance. Our pine forest was well scorched, the dead
trees all burned up, and our broad acres of manzanita swept away. Our
blankets were on our usual sand-bed, however, and so we lay down and
went to sleep. The next morning we started back to the old camp, but while
out a long way from shore, so great a storm came up that we dared not try
to land. So I baled out the seas we shipped, and Johnny pulled heavily
through the billows till we had reached a point three or four miles beyond
the camp. The storm was increasing, and it became evident that it was better
to take the hazard of beaching the boat than go down in a hundred fathoms
of water; so we ran in, with tall white-caps following, and I sat down in the
stern-sheets and pointed her head-on to the shore. The instant the bow
struck, a wave came over the stern that washed crew and cargo ashore, and
saved a deal of trouble. We shivered in the lee of a boulder all the rest of the
day, and froze all the night through. In the morning the tempest had gone

down, and we paddled down to the camp without any unnecessary delay.
We were so starved that we ate up the rest of the Brigade’s provisions, and
then set out to Carson to tell them about it and ask their forgiveness. It was
accorded, upon payment of damages.
We made many trips to the lake after that, and had many a hair-breadth
escape and blood-curdling adventure which will never be recorded in any
history.

CHAPTER XXIV.

I resolved to have a horse to ride. I had never seen such wild, free,
magnificent horsemanship outside of a circus as these picturesquely-clad
Mexicans, Californians and Mexicanized Americans displayed in Carson
streets every day. How they rode! Leaning just gently forward out of the
perpendicular, easy and nonchalant, with broad slouch-hat brim blown
square up in front, and long riata swinging above the head as they swept
through the town like the wind! The next minute they were only a sailing
puff of dust on the far desert. If they trotted, they sat up gallantly and
gracefully, and seemed part of the horse; did not go jiggering up and down
after the silly Miss-Nancy fashion of the riding-schools. I had quickly
learned to tell a horse from a cow, and was full of anxiety to learn more. I
was resolved to buy a horse.
While the thought was rankling in my mind, the auctioneer came
skurrying through the plaza on a black beast that had as many humps and
corners on him as a dromedary, and was necessarily uncomely; but he was
“going, going, at twenty-two!—horse, saddle and bridle at twenty-two
dollars, gentlemen!” and I could hardly resist.
A man whom I did not know (he turned out to be the auctioneer’s
brother) noticed the wistful look in my eye, and observed that that was a
very remarkable horse to be going at such a price; and added that the saddle
alone was worth the money. It was a Spanish saddle, with ponderous
‘tapidaros’, and furnished with the ungainly sole-leather covering with the
unspellable name. I said I had half a notion to bid. Then this keen-eyed
person appeared to me to be “taking my measure”; but I dismissed the
suspicion when he spoke, for his manner was full of guileless candor and
truthfulness. Said he:
“I know that horse—know him well. You are a stranger, I take it, and so
you might think he was an American horse, maybe, but I assure you he is

not. He is nothing of the kind; but—excuse my speaking in a low voice,
other people being near—he is, without the shadow of a doubt, a Genuine
Mexican Plug!”

I did not know what a Genuine Mexican Plug was, but there was
something about this man’s way of saying it, that made me swear inwardly
that I would own a Genuine Mexican Plug, or die.
“Has he any other—er—advantages?” I inquired, suppressing what
eagerness I could.
He hooked his forefinger in the pocket of my army-shirt, led me to one
side, and breathed in my ear impressively these words:
“He can out-buck anything in America!”
“Going, going, going—at twent—ty—four dollars and a half, gen—”
“Twenty-seven!” I shouted, in a frenzy.
“And sold!” said the auctioneer, and passed over the Genuine Mexican
Plug to me.
I could scarcely contain my exultation. I paid the money, and put the
animal in a neighboring livery-stable to dine and rest himself.

In the afternoon I brought the creature into the plaza, and certain citizens
held him by the head, and others by the tail, while I mounted him. As soon
as they let go, he placed all his feet in a bunch together, lowered his back,
and then suddenly arched it upward, and shot me straight into the air a
matter of three or four feet! I came as straight down again, lit in the saddle,
went instantly up again, came down almost on the high pommel, shot up
again, and came down on the horse’s neck—all in the space of three or four
seconds. Then he rose and stood almost straight up on his hind feet, and I,
clasping his lean neck desperately, slid back into the saddle and held on. He
came down, and immediately hoisted his heels into the air, delivering a
vicious kick at the sky, and stood on his forefeet. And then down he came
once more, and began the original exercise of shooting me straight up
again. The third time I went up I heard a stranger say:

“Oh, don’t he buck, though!”
While I was up, somebody struck the horse a sounding thwack with a
leathern strap, and when I arrived again the Genuine Mexican Plug was not
there. A California youth chased him up and caught him, and asked if he
might have a ride. I granted him that luxury. He mounted the Genuine, got
lifted into the air once, but sent his spurs home as he descended, and the
horse darted away like a telegram. He soared over three fences like a bird,
and disappeared down the road toward the Washoe Valley.
I sat down on a stone, with a sigh, and by a natural impulse one of my
hands sought my forehead, and the other the base of my stomach. I believe I
never appreciated, till then, the poverty of the human machinery—for I still
needed a hand or two to place elsewhere. Pen cannot describe how I was
jolted up. Imagination cannot conceive how disjointed I was—how
internally, externally and universally I was unsettled, mixed up and
ruptured. There was a sympathetic crowd around me, though.

One elderly-looking comforter said:

“Stranger, you’ve been taken in. Everybody in this camp knows that
horse. Any child, any Injun, could have told you that he’d buck; he is the
very worst devil to buck on the continent of America. You hear me. I’m
Curry. Old Curry. Old Abe Curry. And moreover, he is a simon-pure, out-
and-out, genuine d—d Mexican plug, and an uncommon mean one at that,
too. Why, you turnip, if you had laid low and kept dark, there’s chances to
buy an American horse for mighty little more than you paid for that bloody
old foreign relic.”
I gave no sign; but I made up my mind that if the auctioneer’s brother’s
funeral took place while I was in the Territory I would postpone all other
recreations and attend it.
After a gallop of sixteen miles the Californian youth and the Genuine
Mexican Plug came tearing into town again, shedding foam-flakes like the
spume-spray that drives before a typhoon, and, with one final skip over a
wheelbarrow and a Chinaman, cast anchor in front of the “ranch.”

Such panting and blowing! Such spreading and contracting of the red
equine nostrils, and glaring of the wild equine eye! But was the imperial
beast subjugated? Indeed he was not.
His lordship the Speaker of the House thought he was, and mounted him
to go down to the Capitol; but the first dash the creature made was over a
pile of telegraph poles half as high as a church; and his time to the Capitol
—one mile and three quarters—remains unbeaten to this day. But then he

took an advantage—he left out the mile, and only did the three quarters.
That is to say, he made a straight cut across lots, preferring fences and
ditches to a crooked road; and when the Speaker got to the Capitol he said
he had been in the air so much he felt as if he had made the trip on a comet.

In the evening the Speaker came home afoot for exercise, and got the
Genuine towed back behind a quartz wagon. The next day I loaned the
animal to the Clerk of the House to go down to the Dana silver mine, six
miles, and he walked back for exercise, and got the horse towed. Everybody
I loaned him to always walked back; they never could get enough exercise
any other way.
Still, I continued to loan him to anybody who was willing to borrow him,
my idea being to get him crippled, and throw him on the borrower’s hands,
or killed, and make the borrower pay for him. But somehow nothing ever

happened to him. He took chances that no other horse ever took and
survived, but he always came out safe. It was his daily habit to try
experiments that had always before been considered impossible, but he
always got through. Sometimes he miscalculated a little, and did not get his
rider through intact, but he always got through himself. Of course I had
tried to sell him; but that was a stretch of simplicity which met with little
sympathy. The auctioneer stormed up and down the streets on him for four
days, dispersing the populace, interrupting business, and destroying
children, and never got a bid—at least never any but the eighteen-dollar one
he hired a notoriously substanceless bummer to make. The people only
smiled pleasantly, and restrained their desire to buy, if they had any. Then
the auctioneer brought in his bill, and I withdrew the horse from the market.
We tried to trade him off at private vendue next, offering him at a sacrifice
for second-hand tombstones, old iron, temperance tracts—any kind of
property. But holders were stiff, and we retired from the market again. I
never tried to ride the horse any more. Walking was good enough exercise
for a man like me, that had nothing the matter with him except ruptures,
internal injuries, and such things. Finally I tried to give him away. But it
was a failure. Parties said earthquakes were handy enough on the Pacific
coast—they did not wish to own one. As a last resort I offered him to the
Governor for the use of the “Brigade.” His face lit up eagerly at first, but
toned down again, and he said the thing would be too palpable.
Just then the livery stable man brought in his bill for six weeks’ keeping
—stall-room for the horse, fifteen dollars; hay for the horse, two hundred
and fifty! The Genuine Mexican Plug had eaten a ton of the article, and the
man said he would have eaten a hundred if he had let him.
I will remark here, in all seriousness, that the regular price of hay during
that year and a part of the next was really two hundred and fifty dollars a
ton. During a part of the previous year it had sold at five hundred a ton, in
gold, and during the winter before that there was such scarcity of the article
that in several instances small quantities had brought eight hundred dollars
a ton in coin! The consequence might be guessed without my telling it:
people turned their stock loose to starve, and before the spring arrived
Carson and Eagle valleys were almost literally carpeted with their carcases!
Any old settler there will verify these statements.

I managed to pay the livery bill, and that same day I gave the Genuine
Mexican Plug to a passing Arkansas emigrant whom fortune delivered into
my hand. If this ever meets his eye, he will doubtless remember the
donation.
Now whoever has had the luck to ride a real Mexican plug will recognize
the animal depicted in this chapter, and hardly consider him exaggerated—
but the uninitiated will feel justified in regarding his portrait as a fancy
sketch, perhaps.

CHAPTER XXV.

Originally, Nevada was a part of Utah and was called Carson county; and
a pretty large county it was, too. Certain of its valleys produced no end of
hay, and this attracted small colonies of Mormon stock-raisers and farmers
to them. A few orthodox Americans straggled in from California, but no
love was lost between the two classes of colonists. There was little or no
friendly intercourse; each party staid to itself. The Mormons were largely in
the majority, and had the additional advantage of being peculiarly under the
protection of the Mormon government of the Territory. Therefore they could
afford to be distant, and even peremptory toward their neighbors. One of the
traditions of Carson Valley illustrates the condition of things that prevailed
at the time I speak of. The hired girl of one of the American families was
Irish, and a Catholic; yet it was noted with surprise that she was the only
person outside of the Mormon ring who could get favors from the
Mormons. She asked kindnesses of them often, and always got them. It was
a mystery to everybody. But one day as she was passing out at the door, a
large bowie knife dropped from under her apron, and when her mistress
asked for an explanation she observed that she was going out to “borry a
wash-tub from the Mormons!”

In 1858 silver lodes were discovered in “Carson County,” and then the
aspect of things changed. Californians began to flock in, and the American
element was soon in the majority. Allegiance to Brigham Young and Utah
was renounced, and a temporary territorial government for “Washoe” was
instituted by the citizens. Governor Roop was the first and only chief
magistrate of it. In due course of time Congress passed a bill to organize
“Nevada Territory,” and President Lincoln sent out Governor Nye to
supplant Roop.
At this time the population of the Territory was about twelve or fifteen
thousand, and rapidly increasing. Silver mines were being vigorously
developed and silver mills erected. Business of all kinds was active and
prosperous and growing more so day by day.
The people were glad to have a legitimately constituted government, but
did not particularly enjoy having strangers from distant States put in
authority over them—a sentiment that was natural enough. They thought

the officials should have been chosen from among themselves from among
prominent citizens who had earned a right to such promotion, and who
would be in sympathy with the populace and likewise thoroughly
acquainted with the needs of the Territory. They were right in viewing the
matter thus, without doubt. The new officers were “emigrants,” and that
was no title to anybody’s affection or admiration either.
The new government was received with considerable coolness. It was not
only a foreign intruder, but a poor one. It was not even worth plucking—
except by the smallest of small fry office-seekers and such. Everybody
knew that Congress had appropriated only twenty thousand dollars a year in
greenbacks for its support—about money enough to run a quartz mill a
month. And everybody knew, also, that the first year’s money was still in
Washington, and that the getting hold of it would be a tedious and difficult
process. Carson City was too wary and too wise to open up a credit account
with the imported bantling with anything like indecent haste.
There is something solemnly funny about the struggles of a new-born
Territorial government to get a start in this world. Ours had a trying time of
it. The Organic Act and the “instructions” from the State Department
commanded that a legislature should be elected at such-and-such a time,
and its sittings inaugurated at such-and-such a date. It was easy to get
legislators, even at three dollars a day, although board was four dollars and
fifty cents, for distinction has its charm in Nevada as well as elsewhere, and
there were plenty of patriotic souls out of employment; but to get a
legislative hall for them to meet in was another matter altogether. Carson
blandly declined to give a room rent-free, or let one to the government on
credit.
But when Curry heard of the difficulty, he came forward, solitary and
alone, and shouldered the Ship of State over the bar and got her afloat
again. I refer to “Curry—Old Curry—Old Abe Curry.” But for him the
legislature would have been obliged to sit in the desert. He offered his large
stone building just outside the capital limits, rent-free, and it was gladly
accepted. Then he built a horse-railroad from town to the capitol, and
carried the legislators gratis.
He also furnished pine benches and chairs for the legislature, and covered
the floors with clean saw-dust by way of carpet and spittoon combined. But
for Curry the government would have died in its tender infancy. A canvas

partition to separate the Senate from the House of Representatives was put
up by the Secretary, at a cost of three dollars and forty cents, but the United
States declined to pay for it. Upon being reminded that the “instructions”
permitted the payment of a liberal rent for a legislative hall, and that that
money was saved to the country by Mr. Curry’s generosity, the United
States said that did not alter the matter, and the three dollars and forty cents
would be subtracted from the Secretary’s eighteen hundred dollar salary—
and it was!

The matter of printing was from the beginning an interesting feature of
the new government’s difficulties. The Secretary was sworn to obey his
volume of written “instructions,” and these commanded him to do two
certain things without fail, viz.:
1. Get the House and Senate journals printed; and, 2. For this work, pay
one dollar and fifty cents per “thousand” for composition, and one dollar
and fifty cents per “token” for press-work, in greenbacks.
It was easy to swear to do these two things, but it was entirely impossible
to do more than one of them. When greenbacks had gone down to forty
cents on the dollar, the prices regularly charged everybody by printing
establishments were one dollar and fifty cents per “thousand” and one
dollar and fifty cents per “token,” in gold. The “instructions” commanded
that the Secretary regard a paper dollar issued by the government as equal
to any other dollar issued by the government. Hence the printing of the
journals was discontinued. Then the United States sternly rebuked the
Secretary for disregarding the “instructions,” and warned him to correct his
ways. Wherefore he got some printing done, forwarded the bill to
Washington with full exhibits of the high prices of things in the Territory,
and called attention to a printed market report wherein it would be observed

that even hay was two hundred and fifty dollars a ton. The United States
responded by subtracting the printing- bill from the Secretary’s suffering
salary—and moreover remarked with dense gravity that he would find
nothing in his “instructions” requiring him to purchase hay!
Nothing in this world is palled in such impenetrable obscurity as a U.S.
Treasury Comptroller’s understanding. The very fires of the hereafter could
get up nothing more than a fitful glimmer in it. In the days I speak of he
never could be made to comprehend why it was that twenty thousand
dollars would not go as far in Nevada, where all commodities ranged at an
enormous figure, as it would in the other Territories, where exceeding
cheapness was the rule. He was an officer who looked out for the little
expenses all the time. The Secretary of the Territory kept his office in his
bedroom, as I before remarked; and he charged the United States no rent,
although his “instructions” provided for that item and he could have justly
taken advantage of it (a thing which I would have done with more than
lightning promptness if I had been Secretary myself). But the United States
never applauded this devotion. Indeed, I think my country was ashamed to
have so improvident a person in its employ.
Those “instructions” (we used to read a chapter from them every
morning, as intellectual gymnastics, and a couple of chapters in Sunday
school every Sabbath, for they treated of all subjects under the sun and had
much valuable religious matter in them along with the other statistics) those
“instructions” commanded that pen-knives, envelopes, pens and writing-
paper be furnished the members of the legislature. So the Secretary made
the purchase and the distribution. The knives cost three dollars apiece.
There was one too many, and the Secretary gave it to the Clerk of the House
of Representatives. The United States said the Clerk of the House was not a
“member” of the legislature, and took that three dollars out of the
Secretary’s salary, as usual.
White men charged three or four dollars a “load” for sawing up stove-
wood. The Secretary was sagacious enough to know that the United States
would never pay any such price as that; so he got an Indian to saw up a load
of office wood at one dollar and a half. He made out the usual voucher, but
signed no name to it—simply appended a note explaining that an Indian had
done the work, and had done it in a very capable and satisfactory way, but
could not sign the voucher owing to lack of ability in the necessary

direction. The Secretary had to pay that dollar and a half. He thought the
United States would admire both his economy and his honesty in getting the
work done at half price and not putting a pretended Indian’s signature to the
voucher, but the United States did not see it in that light.
The United States was too much accustomed to employing dollar-and-a-
half thieves in all manner of official capacities to regard his explanation of
the voucher as having any foundation in fact.

But the next time the Indian sawed wood for us I taught him to make a
cross at the bottom of the voucher—it looked like a cross that had been
drunk a year—and then I “witnessed” it and it went through all right. The
United States never said a word. I was sorry I had not made the voucher for
a thousand loads of wood instead of one.
The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles
artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable
pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.
That was a fine collection of sovereigns, that first Nevada legislature.
They levied taxes to the amount of thirty or forty thousand dollars and
ordered expenditures to the extent of about a million. Yet they had their
little periodical explosions of economy like all other bodies of the kind. A
member proposed to save three dollars a day to the nation by dispensing
with the Chaplain. And yet that short-sighted man needed the Chaplain
more than any other member, perhaps, for he generally sat with his feet on
his desk, eating raw turnips, during the morning prayer.

The legislature sat sixty days, and passed private tollroad franchises all
the time. When they adjourned it was estimated that every citizen owned
about three franchises, and it was believed that unless Congress gave the
Territory another degree of longitude there would not be room enough to
accommodate the toll-roads. The ends of them were hanging over the
boundary line everywhere like a fringe.

The fact is, the freighting business had grown to such important
proportions that there was nearly as much excitement over suddenly
acquired toll-road fortunes as over the wonderful silver mines.

CHAPTER XXVI.

By and by I was smitten with the silver fever. “Prospecting parties” were
leaving for the mountains every day, and discovering and taking possession
of rich silver-bearing lodes and ledges of quartz. Plainly this was the road to
fortune. The great “Gould and Curry” mine was held at three or four
hundred dollars a foot when we arrived; but in two months it had sprung up
to eight hundred. The “Ophir” had been worth only a mere trifle, a year
gone by, and now it was selling at nearly four thousand dollars a foot! Not
a mine could be named that had not experienced an astonishing advance in
value within a short time. Everybody was talking about these marvels. Go
where you would, you heard nothing else, from morning till far into the
night. Tom So-and-So had sold out of the “Amanda Smith” for $40,000—
hadn’t a cent when he “took up” the ledge six months ago. John Jones had
sold half his interest in the “Bald Eagle and Mary Ann” for $65,000, gold
coin, and gone to the States for his family. The widow Brewster had “struck
it rich” in the “Golden Fleece” and sold ten feet for $18,000—hadn’t money
enough to buy a crape bonnet when Sing-Sing Tommy killed her husband at
Baldy Johnson’s wake last spring. The “Last Chance” had found a “clay
casing” and knew they were “right on the ledge”—consequence, “feet” that
went begging yesterday were worth a brick house apiece to-day, and seedy
owners who could not get trusted for a drink at any bar in the country
yesterday were roaring drunk on champagne to-day and had hosts of warm
personal friends in a town where they had forgotten how to bow or shake
hands from long-continued want of practice. Johnny Morgan, a common
loafer, had gone to sleep in the gutter and waked up worth a hundred
thousand dollars, in consequence of the decision in the “Lady Franklin and
Rough and Ready” lawsuit. And so on—day in and day out the talk pelted
our ears and the excitement waxed hotter and hotter around us.

I would have been more or less than human if I had not gone mad like the
rest. Cart-loads of solid silver bricks, as large as pigs of lead, were arriving
from the mills every day, and such sights as that gave substance to the wild
talk about me. I succumbed and grew as frenzied as the craziest.

Every few days news would come of the discovery of a bran-new mining
region; immediately the papers would teem with accounts of its richness,
and away the surplus population would scamper to take possession. By the
time I was fairly inoculated with the disease, “Esmeralda” had just had a
run and “Humboldt” was beginning to shriek for attention. “Humboldt!
Humboldt!” was the new cry, and straightway Humboldt, the newest of the
new, the richest of the rich, the most marvellous of the marvellous
discoveries in silver-land was occupying two columns of the public prints to
“Esmeralda’s” one. I was just on the point of starting to Esmeralda, but
turned with the tide and got ready for Humboldt. That the reader may see
what moved me, and what would as surely have moved him had he been
there, I insert here one of the newspaper letters of the day. It and several
other letters from the same calm hand were the main means of converting
me. I shall not garble the extract, but put it in just as it appeared in the Daily
Territorial Enterprise:

But what about our mines? I shall be candid with you. I
shall express an honest opinion, based upon a thorough
examination. Humboldt county is the richest mineral region
upon God’s footstool. Each mountain range is gorged with
the precious ores. Humboldt is the true Golconda.
The other day an assay of mere croppings yielded
exceeding four thousand dollars to the ton. A week or two
ago an assay of just such surface developments made
returns of seven thousand dollars to the ton. Our mountains
are full of rambling prospectors. Each day and almost every
hour reveals new and more startling evidences of the profuse
and intensified wealth of our favored county. The metal is
not silver alone. There are distinct ledges of auriferous ore.
A late discovery plainly evinces cinnabar. The coarser
metals are in gross abundance. Lately evidences of
bituminous coal have been detected. My theory has ever
been that coal is a ligneous formation. I told Col. Whitman,
in times past, that the neighborhood of Dayton (Nevada)
betrayed no present or previous manifestations of a ligneous
foundation, and that hence I had no confidence in his lauded
coal mines. I repeated the same doctrine to the exultant coal
discoverers of Humboldt. I talked with my friend Captain
Burch on the subject. My pyrhanism vanished upon his
statement that in the very region referred to he had seen
petrified trees of the length of two hundred feet. Then is the
fact established that huge forests once cast their grim
shadows over this remote section. I am firm in the coal faith.
Have no fears of the mineral resources of Humboldt county.
They are immense—incalculable.

Let me state one or two things which will help the reader to better
comprehend certain items in the above. At this time, our near neighbor,
Gold Hill, was the most successful silver mining locality in Nevada. It was
from there that more than half the daily shipments of silver bricks came.
“Very rich” (and scarce) Gold Hill ore yielded from $100 to $400 to the ton;
but the usual yield was only $20 to $40 per ton—that is to say, each
hundred pounds of ore yielded from one dollar to two dollars. But the

reader will perceive by the above extract, that in Humboldt from one fourth
to nearly half the mass was silver! That is to say, every one hundred pounds
of the ore had from two hundred dollars up to about three hundred and fifty
in it. Some days later this same correspondent wrote:

I have spoken of the vast and almost fabulous wealth of
this region—it is incredible. The intestines of our mountains
are gorged with precious ore to plethora. I have said that
nature has so shaped our mountains as to furnish most
excellent facilities for the working of our mines. I have also
told you that the country about here is pregnant with the
finest mill sites in the world. But what is the mining history
of Humboldt? The Sheba mine is in the hands of energetic
San Francisco capitalists. It would seem that the ore is
combined with metals that render it difficult of reduction
with our imperfect mountain machinery. The proprietors
have combined the capital and labor hinted at in my
exordium. They are toiling and probing. Their tunnel has
reached the length of one hundred feet. From primal assays
alone, coupled with the development of the mine and public
confidence in the continuance of effort, the stock had reared
itself to eight hundred dollars market value. I do not know
that one ton of the ore has been converted into current
metal. I do know that there are many lodes in this section
that surpass the Sheba in primal assay value. Listen a
moment to the calculations of the Sheba operators. They
purpose transporting the ore concentrated to Europe. The
conveyance from Star City (its locality) to Virginia City will
cost seventy dollars per ton; from Virginia to San Francisco,
forty dollars per ton; from thence to Liverpool, its
destination, ten dollars per ton. Their idea is that its
conglomerate metals will reimburse them their cost of
original extraction, the price of transportation, and the
expense of reduction, and that then a ton of the raw ore will
net them twelve hundred dollars. The estimate may be
extravagant. Cut it in twain, and the product is enormous,

far transcending any previous developments of our racy
Territory.
A very common calculation is that many of our mines will
yield five hundred dollars to the ton. Such fecundity throws
the Gould & Curry, the Ophir and the Mexican, of your
neighborhood, in the darkest shadow. I have given you the
estimate of the value of a single developed mine. Its richness
is indexed by its market valuation. The people of Humboldt
county are feet crazy. As I write, our towns are near
deserted. They look as languid as a consumptive girl. What
has become of our sinewy and athletic fellow-citizens? They
are coursing through ravines and over mountain tops. Their
tracks are visible in every direction. Occasionally a
horseman will dash among us. His steed betrays hard usage.
He alights before his adobe dwelling, hastily exchanges
courtesies with his townsmen, hurries to an assay office and
from thence to the District Recorder’s. In the morning,
having renewed his provisional supplies, he is off again on
his wild and unbeaten route. Why, the fellow numbers
already his feet by the thousands. He is the horse-leech. He
has the craving stomach of the shark or anaconda. He would
conquer metallic worlds.

This was enough. The instant we had finished reading the above article,
four of us decided to go to Humboldt. We commenced getting ready at
once. And we also commenced upbraiding ourselves for not deciding
sooner—for we were in terror lest all the rich mines would be found and
secured before we got there, and we might have to put up with ledges that
would not yield more than two or three hundred dollars a ton, maybe. An
hour before, I would have felt opulent if I had owned ten feet in a Gold Hill
mine whose ore produced twenty-five dollars to the ton; now I was already
annoyed at the prospect of having to put up with mines the poorest of which
would be a marvel in Gold Hill.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Hurry, was the word! We wasted no time. Our party consisted of four
persons—a blacksmith sixty years of age, two young lawyers, and myself.
We bought a wagon and two miserable old horses. We put eighteen hundred
pounds of provisions and mining tools in the wagon and drove out of
Carson on a chilly December afternoon. The horses were so weak and old
that we soon found that it would be better if one or two of us got out and
walked. It was an improvement. Next, we found that it would be better if a
third man got out. That was an improvement also. It was at this time that I
volunteered to drive, although I had never driven a harnessed horse before
and many a man in such a position would have felt fairly excused from such
a responsibility. But in a little while it was found that it would be a fine
thing if the driver got out and walked also. It was at this time that I resigned
the position of driver, and never resumed it again. Within the hour, we
found that it would not only be better, but was absolutely necessary, that we
four, taking turns, two at a time, should put our hands against the end of the
wagon and push it through the sand, leaving the feeble horses little to do but
keep out of the way and hold up the tongue. Perhaps it is well for one to
know his fate at first, and get reconciled to it. We had learned ours in one
afternoon. It was plain that we had to walk through the sand and shove that
wagon and those horses two hundred miles. So we accepted the situation,
and from that time forth we never rode. More than that, we stood regular
and nearly constant watches pushing up behind.
We made seven miles, and camped in the desert. Young Clagett (now
member of Congress from Montana) unharnessed and fed and watered the
horses; Oliphant and I cut sagebrush, built the fire and brought water to
cook with; and old Mr. Ballou the blacksmith did the cooking. This division
of labor, and this appointment, was adhered to throughout the journey. We

had no tent, and so we slept under our blankets in the open plain. We were
so tired that we slept soundly.

We were fifteen days making the trip—two hundred miles; thirteen,
rather, for we lay by a couple of days, in one place, to let the horses rest.
We could really have accomplished the journey in ten days if we had
towed the horses behind the wagon, but we did not think of that until it was
too late, and so went on shoving the horses and the wagon too when we
might have saved half the labor. Parties who met us, occasionally, advised
us to put the horses in the wagon, but Mr. Ballou, through whose iron-clad
earnestness no sarcasm could pierce, said that that would not do, because
the provisions were exposed and would suffer, the horses being “bituminous
from long deprivation.” The reader will excuse me from translating. What
Mr. Ballou customarily meant, when he used a long word, was a secret
between himself and his Maker. He was one of the best and kindest hearted
men that ever graced a humble sphere of life. He was gentleness and
simplicity itself—and unselfishness, too. Although he was more than twice
as old as the eldest of us, he never gave himself any airs, privileges, or
exemptions on that account. He did a young man’s share of the work; and
did his share of conversing and entertaining from the general stand-point of
any age—not from the arrogant, overawing summit-height of sixty years.
His one striking peculiarity was his Partingtonian fashion of loving and
using big words for their own sakes, and independent of any bearing they
might have upon the thought he was purposing to convey. He always let his
ponderous syllables fall with an easy unconsciousness that left them wholly
without offensiveness. In truth his air was so natural and so simple that one

was always catching himself accepting his stately sentences as meaning
something, when they really meant nothing in the world. If a word was long
and grand and resonant, that was sufficient to win the old man’s love, and
he would drop that word into the most out-of-the-way place in a sentence or
a subject, and be as pleased with it as if it were perfectly luminous with
meaning.

We four always spread our common stock of blankets together on the
frozen ground, and slept side by side; and finding that our foolish, long-
legged hound pup had a deal of animal heat in him, Oliphant got to
admitting him to the bed, between himself and Mr. Ballou, hugging the
dog’s warm back to his breast and finding great comfort in it. But in the
night the pup would get stretchy and brace his feet against the old man’s
back and shove, grunting complacently the while; and now and then, being
warm and snug, grateful and happy, he would paw the old man’s back
simply in excess of comfort; and at yet other times he would dream of the
chase and in his sleep tug at the old man’s back hair and bark in his ear. The
old gentleman complained mildly about these familiarities, at last, and
when he got through with his statement he said that such a dog as that was
not a proper animal to admit to bed with tired men, because he was “so
meretricious in his movements and so organic in his emotions.” We turned
the dog out.
It was a hard, wearing, toilsome journey, but it had its bright side; for
after each day was done and our wolfish hunger appeased with a hot supper
of fried bacon, bread, molasses and black coffee, the pipe-smoking, song-

singing and yarn-spinning around the evening camp-fire in the still
solitudes of the desert was a happy, care-free sort of recreation that seemed
the very summit and culmination of earthly luxury.
It is a kind of life that has a potent charm for all men, whether city or
country-bred. We are descended from desert-lounging Arabs, and countless
ages of growth toward perfect civilization have failed to root out of us the
nomadic instinct. We all confess to a gratified thrill at the thought of
“camping out.”
Once we made twenty-five miles in a day, and once we made forty miles
(through the Great American Desert), and ten miles beyond—fifty in all—in
twenty-three hours, without halting to eat, drink or rest. To stretch out and
go to sleep, even on stony and frozen ground, after pushing a wagon and
two horses fifty miles, is a delight so supreme that for the moment it almost
seems cheap at the price.
We camped two days in the neighborhood of the “Sink of the Humboldt.”
We tried to use the strong alkaline water of the Sink, but it would not
answer. It was like drinking lye, and not weak lye, either. It left a taste in
the mouth, bitter and every way execrable, and a burning in the stomach
that was very uncomfortable. We put molasses in it, but that helped it very
little; we added a pickle, yet the alkali was the prominent taste and so it was
unfit for drinking.

The coffee we made of this water was the meanest compound man has
yet invented. It was really viler to the taste than the unameliorated water
itself. Mr. Ballou, being the architect and builder of the beverage felt
constrained to endorse and uphold it, and so drank half a cup, by little sips,
making shift to praise it faintly the while, but finally threw out the
remainder, and said frankly it was “too technical for him.”
But presently we found a spring of fresh water, convenient, and then,
with nothing to mar our enjoyment, and no stragglers to interrupt it, we
entered into our rest.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

After leaving the Sink, we traveled along the Humboldt river a little way.
People accustomed to the monster mile-wide Mississippi, grow accustomed
to associating the term “river” with a high degree of watery grandeur.
Consequently, such people feel rather disappointed when they stand on the
shores of the Humboldt or the Carson and find that a “river” in Nevada is a
sickly rivulet which is just the counterpart of the Erie canal in all respects
save that the canal is twice as long and four times as deep. One of the
pleasantest and most invigorating exercises one can contrive is to run and
jump across the Humboldt river till he is overheated, and then drink it dry.
On the fifteenth day we completed our march of two hundred miles and
entered Unionville, Humboldt county, in the midst of a driving snow-
storm. Unionville consisted of eleven cabins and a liberty-pole. Six of the
cabins were strung along one side of a deep canyon, and the other five faced
them. The rest of the landscape was made up of bleak mountain walls that
rose so high into the sky from both sides of the canyon that the village was
left, as it were, far down in the bottom of a crevice. It was always daylight
on the mountain tops a long time before the darkness lifted and revealed
Unionville.
We built a small, rude cabin in the side of the crevice and roofed it with
canvas, leaving a corner open to serve as a chimney, through which the
cattle used to tumble occasionally, at night, and mash our furniture and
interrupt our sleep. It was very cold weather and fuel was scarce. Indians
brought brush and bushes several miles on their backs; and when we could
catch a laden Indian it was well—and when we could not (which was the
rule, not the exception), we shivered and bore it.

I confess, without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver lying all
about the ground. I expected to see it glittering in the sun on the mountain
summits. I said nothing about this, for some instinct told me that I might
possibly have an exaggerated idea about it, and so if I betrayed my thought
I might bring derision upon myself. Yet I was as perfectly satisfied in my
own mind as I could be of anything, that I was going to gather up, in a day
or two, or at furthest a week or two, silver enough to make me satisfactorily
wealthy—and so my fancy was already busy with plans for spending this
money. The first opportunity that offered, I sauntered carelessly away from
the cabin, keeping an eye on the other boys, and stopping and
contemplating the sky when they seemed to be observing me; but as soon as
the coast was manifestly clear, I fled away as guiltily as a thief might have
done and never halted till I was far beyond sight and call. Then I began my
search with a feverish excitement that was brimful of expectation—almost
of certainty. I crawled about the ground, seizing and examining bits of
stone, blowing the dust from them or rubbing them on my clothes, and then
peering at them with anxious hope. Presently I found a bright fragment and
my heart bounded! I hid behind a boulder and polished it and scrutinized it
with a nervous eagerness and a delight that was more pronounced than

absolute certainty itself could have afforded. The more I examined the
fragment the more I was convinced that I had found the door to fortune. I
marked the spot and carried away my specimen. Up and down the rugged
mountain side I searched, with always increasing interest and always
augmenting gratitude that I had come to Humboldt and come in time. Of all
the experiences of my life, this secret search among the hidden treasures of
silver-land was the nearest to unmarred ecstasy. It was a delirious revel.
By and by, in the bed of a shallow rivulet, I found a deposit of shining
yellow scales, and my breath almost forsook me! A gold mine, and in my
simplicity I had been content with vulgar silver! I was so excited that I half
believed my overwrought imagination was deceiving me. Then a fear came
upon me that people might be observing me and would guess my secret.
Moved by this thought, I made a circuit of the place, and ascended a knoll
to reconnoiter. Solitude. No creature was near. Then I returned to my mine,
fortifying myself against possible disappointment, but my fears were
groundless—the shining scales were still there. I set about scooping them
out, and for an hour I toiled down the windings of the stream and robbed its
bed. But at last the descending sun warned me to give up the quest, and I
turned homeward laden with wealth. As I walked along I could not help
smiling at the thought of my being so excited over my fragment of silver
when a nobler metal was almost under my nose. In this little time the
former had so fallen in my estimation that once or twice I was on the point
of throwing it away.
The boys were as hungry as usual, but I could eat nothing. Neither could
I talk. I was full of dreams and far away. Their conversation interrupted the
flow of my fancy somewhat, and annoyed me a little, too. I despised the
sordid and commonplace things they talked about. But as they proceeded, it
began to amuse me. It grew to be rare fun to hear them planning their poor
little economies and sighing over possible privations and distresses when a
gold mine, all our own, lay within sight of the cabin and I could point it out
at any moment. Smothered hilarity began to oppress me, presently. It was
hard to resist the impulse to burst out with exultation and reveal everything;
but I did resist. I said within myself that I would filter the great news
through my lips calmly and be serene as a summer morning while I watched
its effect in their faces. I said:
“Where have you all been?”

“Prospecting.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What do you think of the country?”
“Can’t tell, yet,” said Mr. Ballou, who was an old gold miner, and had
likewise had considerable experience among the silver mines.
“Well, haven’t you formed any sort of opinion?”
“Yes, a sort of a one. It’s fair enough here, may be, but overrated. Seven
thousand dollar ledges are scarce, though.
“That Sheba may be rich enough, but we don’t own it; and besides, the
rock is so full of base metals that all the science in the world can’t work it.
We’ll not starve, here, but we’ll not get rich, I’m afraid.”
“So you think the prospect is pretty poor?”
“No name for it!”
“Well, we’d better go back, hadn’t we?”
“Oh, not yet—of course not. We’ll try it a riffle, first.”
“Suppose, now—this is merely a supposition, you know—suppose you
could find a ledge that would yield, say, a hundred and fifty dollars a ton—
would that satisfy you?”
“Try us once!” from the whole party.
“Or suppose—merely a supposition, of course—suppose you were to
find a ledge that would yield two thousand dollars a ton—would that satisfy
you?”
“Here—what do you mean? What are you coming at? Is there some
mystery behind all this?”
“Never mind. I am not saying anything. You know perfectly well there
are no rich mines here—of course you do. Because you have been around
and examined for yourselves. Anybody would know that, that had been
around. But just for the sake of argument, suppose—in a kind of general
way—suppose some person were to tell you that two-thousand-dollar
ledges were simply contemptible—contemptible, understand—and that
right yonder in sight of this very cabin there were piles of pure gold and
pure silver—oceans of it—enough to make you all rich in twenty-four
hours! Come!”

“I should say he was as crazy as a loon!” said old Ballou, but wild with
excitement, nevertheless.
“Gentlemen,” said I, “I don’t say anything—I haven’t been around, you
know, and of course don’t know anything—but all I ask of you is to cast
your eye on that, for instance, and tell me what you think of it!” and I
tossed my treasure before them.

There was an eager scramble for it, and a closing of heads together over
it under the candle-light. Then old Ballou said:
“Think of it? I think it is nothing but a lot of granite rubbish and nasty
glittering mica that isn’t worth ten cents an acre!”
So vanished my dream. So melted my wealth away. So toppled my airy
castle to the earth and left me stricken and forlorn.
Moralizing, I observed, then, that “all that glitters is not gold.”
Mr. Ballou said I could go further than that, and lay it up among my
treasures of knowledge, that nothing that glitters is gold. So I learned then,
once for all, that gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and
that only low-born metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an
ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on

underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica. Commonplace human
nature cannot rise above that.

CHAPTER XXIX.

True knowledge of the nature of silver mining came fast enough. We
went out “prospecting” with Mr. Ballou. We climbed the mountain sides,
and clambered among sage-brush, rocks and snow till we were ready to
drop with exhaustion, but found no silver—nor yet any gold. Day after day
we did this. Now and then we came upon holes burrowed a few feet into the
declivities and apparently abandoned; and now and then we found one or
two listless men still burrowing. But there was no appearance of silver.
These holes were the beginnings of tunnels, and the purpose was to drive
them hundreds of feet into the mountain, and some day tap the hidden ledge
where the silver was. Some day! It seemed far enough away, and very
hopeless and dreary. Day after day we toiled, and climbed and searched,
and we younger partners grew sicker and still sicker of the promiseless toil.
At last we halted under a beetling rampart of rock which projected from the
earth high upon the mountain. Mr. Ballou broke off some fragments with a
hammer, and examined them long and attentively with a small eye-glass;
threw them away and broke off more; said this rock was quartz, and quartz
was the sort of rock that contained silver. Contained it! I had thought that at
least it would be caked on the outside of it like a kind of veneering. He still
broke off pieces and critically examined them, now and then wetting the
piece with his tongue and applying the glass. At last he exclaimed:
“We’ve got it!”

We were full of anxiety in a moment. The rock was clean and white,
where it was broken, and across it ran a ragged thread of blue. He said that
that little thread had silver in it, mixed with base metal, such as lead and
antimony, and other rubbish, and that there was a speck or two of gold
visible. After a great deal of effort we managed to discern some little fine
yellow specks, and judged that a couple of tons of them massed together
might make a gold dollar, possibly. We were not jubilant, but Mr. Ballou
said there were worse ledges in the world than that. He saved what he called
the “richest” piece of the rock, in order to determine its value by the process
called the “fire-assay.” Then we named the mine “Monarch of the
Mountains” (modesty of nomenclature is not a prominent feature in the
mines), and Mr. Ballou wrote out and stuck up the following “notice,”
preserving a copy to be entered upon the books in the mining recorder’s
office in the town.

“NOTICE.”

“We the undersigned claim three claims, of three hundred
feet each (and one for discovery), on this silver-bearing
quartz lead or lode, extending north and south from this
notice, with all its dips, spurs, and angles, variations and
sinuosities, together with fifty feet of ground on either side
for working the same.”

We put our names to it and tried to feel that our fortunes were made. But
when we talked the matter all over with Mr. Ballou, we felt depressed and
dubious. He said that this surface quartz was not all there was of our mine;
but that the wall or ledge of rock called the “Monarch of the Mountains,”
extended down hundreds and hundreds of feet into the earth—he illustrated
by saying it was like a curb-stone, and maintained a nearly uniform
thickness—say twenty feet—away down into the bowels of the earth, and
was perfectly distinct from the casing rock on each side of it; and that it
kept to itself, and maintained its distinctive character always, no matter how
deep it extended into the earth or how far it stretched itself through and
across the hills and valleys. He said it might be a mile deep and ten miles
long, for all we knew; and that wherever we bored into it above ground or
below, we would find gold and silver in it, but no gold or silver in the
meaner rock it was cased between. And he said that down in the great
depths of the ledge was its richness, and the deeper it went the richer it
grew. Therefore, instead of working here on the surface, we must either
bore down into the rock with a shaft till we came to where it was rich—say
a hundred feet or so—or else we must go down into the valley and bore a
long tunnel into the mountain side and tap the ledge far under the earth. To
do either was plainly the labor of months; for we could blast and bore only
a few feet a day—some five or six. But this was not all. He said that after
we got the ore out it must be hauled in wagons to a distant silver-mill,
ground up, and the silver extracted by a tedious and costly process. Our
fortune seemed a century away!
But we went to work. We decided to sink a shaft. So, for a week we
climbed the mountain, laden with picks, drills, gads, crowbars, shovels,
cans of blasting powder and coils of fuse and strove with might and main.
At first the rock was broken and loose and we dug it up with picks and
threw it out with shovels, and the hole progressed very well. But the rock

became more compact, presently, and gads and crowbars came into play.
But shortly nothing could make an impression but blasting powder.
That was the weariest work! One of us held the iron drill in its place and
another would strike with an eight-pound sledge—it was like driving nails
on a large scale. In the course of an hour or two the drill would reach a
depth of two or three feet, making a hole a couple of inches in diameter. We
would put in a charge of powder, insert half a yard of fuse, pour in sand and
gravel and ram it down, then light the fuse and run. When the explosion
came and the rocks and smoke shot into the air, we would go back and find
about a bushel of that hard, rebellious quartz jolted out. Nothing more. One
week of this satisfied me. I resigned. Clagget and Oliphant followed. Our
shaft was only twelve feet deep. We decided that a tunnel was the thing we
wanted.

So we went down the mountain side and worked a week; at the end of
which time we had blasted a tunnel about deep enough to hide a hogshead
in, and judged that about nine hundred feet more of it would reach the
ledge. I resigned again, and the other boys only held out one day longer. We
decided that a tunnel was not what we wanted. We wanted a ledge that was
already “developed.” There were none in the camp.
We dropped the “Monarch” for the time being.
Meantime the camp was filling up with people, and there was a
constantly growing excitement about our Humboldt mines. We fell victims
to the epidemic and strained every nerve to acquire more “feet.” We
prospected and took up new claims, put “notices” on them and gave them
grandiloquent names. We traded some of our “feet” for “feet” in other
people’s claims. In a little while we owned largely in the “Gray Eagle,” the
“Columbiana,” the “Branch Mint,” the “Maria Jane,” the “Universe,” the
“Root-Hog-or-Die,” the “Samson and Delilah,” the “Treasure Trove,” the
“Golconda,” the “Sultana,” the “Boomerang,” the “Great Republic,” the
“Grand Mogul,” and fifty other “mines” that had never been molested by a
shovel or scratched with a pick. We had not less than thirty thousand “feet”
apiece in the “richest mines on earth” as the frenzied cant phrased it—and
were in debt to the butcher. We were stark mad with excitement—drunk
with happiness—smothered under mountains of prospective wealth—
arrogantly compassionate toward the plodding millions who knew not our
marvellous canyon—but our credit was not good at the grocer’s.
It was the strangest phase of life one can imagine. It was a beggars’ revel.
There was nothing doing in the district—no mining—no milling—no
productive effort—no income—and not enough money in the entire camp to
buy a corner lot in an eastern village, hardly; and yet a stranger would have
supposed he was walking among bloated millionaires. Prospecting parties
swarmed out of town with the first flush of dawn, and swarmed in again at
nightfall laden with spoil—rocks. Nothing but rocks. Every man’s pockets
were full of them; the floor of his cabin was littered with them; they were
disposed in labeled rows on his shelves.

CHAPTER XXX.

I met men at every turn who owned from one thousand to thirty thousand
“feet” in undeveloped silver mines, every single foot of which they believed
would shortly be worth from fifty to a thousand dollars—and as often as
any other way they were men who had not twenty-five dollars in the world.
Every man you met had his new mine to boast of, and his “specimens”
ready; and if the opportunity offered, he would infallibly back you into a
corner and offer as a favor to you, not to him, to part with just a few feet in
the “Golden Age,” or the “Sarah Jane,” or some other unknown stack of
croppings, for money enough to get a “square meal” with, as the phrase
went. And you were never to reveal that he had made you the offer at such a
ruinous price, for it was only out of friendship for you that he was willing to
make the sacrifice. Then he would fish a piece of rock out of his pocket,
and after looking mysteriously around as if he feared he might be waylaid
and robbed if caught with such wealth in his possession, he would dab the
rock against his tongue, clap an eyeglass to it, and exclaim:
“Look at that! Right there in that red dirt! See it? See the specks of gold?
And the streak of silver? That’s from the ‘Uncle Abe.’ There’s a hundred
thousand tons like that in sight! Right in sight, mind you! And when we get
down on it and the ledge comes in solid, it will be the richest thing in the
world! Look at the assay! I don’t want you to believe me—look at the
assay!”

Then he would get out a greasy sheet of paper which showed that the
portion of rock assayed had given evidence of containing silver and gold in
the proportion of so many hundreds or thousands of dollars to the ton.
I little knew, then, that the custom was to hunt out the richest piece of
rock and get it assayed! Very often, that piece, the size of a filbert, was the
only fragment in a ton that had a particle of metal in it—and yet the assay
made it pretend to represent the average value of the ton of rubbish it came
from!
On such a system of assaying as that, the Humboldt world had gone
crazy. On the authority of such assays its newspaper correspondents were
frothing about rock worth four and seven thousand dollars a ton!
And does the reader remember, a few pages back, the calculations, of a
quoted correspondent, whereby the ore is to be mined and shipped all the
way to England, the metals extracted, and the gold and silver contents
received back by the miners as clear profit, the copper, antimony and other
things in the ore being sufficient to pay all the expenses incurred?
Everybody’s head was full of such “calculations” as those—such raving

insanity, rather. Few people took work into their calculations—or outlay of
money either; except the work and expenditures of other people.
We never touched our tunnel or our shaft again. Why? Because we
judged that we had learned the real secret of success in silver mining—
which was, not to mine the silver ourselves by the sweat of our brows and
the labor of our hands, but to sell the ledges to the dull slaves of toil and let
them do the mining!
Before leaving Carson, the Secretary and I had purchased “feet” from
various Esmeralda stragglers. We had expected immediate returns of
bullion, but were only afflicted with regular and constant “assessments”
instead—demands for money wherewith to develop the said mines. These
assessments had grown so oppressive that it seemed necessary to look into
the matter personally. Therefore I projected a pilgrimage to Carson and
thence to Esmeralda. I bought a horse and started, in company with Mr.
Ballou and a gentleman named Ollendorff, a Prussian—not the party who
has inflicted so much suffering on the world with his wretched foreign
grammars, with their interminable repetitions of questions which never
have occurred and are never likely to occur in any conversation among
human beings. We rode through a snow-storm for two or three days, and
arrived at “Honey Lake Smith’s,” a sort of isolated inn on the Carson river.
It was a two-story log house situated on a small knoll in the midst of the
vast basin or desert through which the sickly Carson winds its melancholy
way. Close to the house were the Overland stage stables, built of sun-dried
bricks. There was not another building within several leagues of the place.
Towards sunset about twenty hay-wagons arrived and camped around the
house and all the teamsters came in to supper—a very, very rough set.
There were one or two Overland stage drivers there, also, and half a dozen
vagabonds and stragglers; consequently the house was well crowded.
We walked out, after supper, and visited a small Indian camp in the
vicinity. The Indians were in a great hurry about something, and were
packing up and getting away as fast as they could. In their broken English
they said, “By’m-by, heap water!” and by the help of signs made us
understand that in their opinion a flood was coming. The weather was
perfectly clear, and this was not the rainy season. There was about a foot of
water in the insignificant river—or maybe two feet; the stream was not

wider than a back alley in a village, and its banks were scarcely higher than
a man’s head.
So, where was the flood to come from? We canvassed the subject awhile
and then concluded it was a ruse, and that the Indians had some better
reason for leaving in a hurry than fears of a flood in such an exceedingly
dry time.

At seven in the evening we went to bed in the second story—with our
clothes on, as usual, and all three in the same bed, for every available space
on the floors, chairs, etc., was in request, and even then there was barely
room for the housing of the inn’s guests. An hour later we were awakened
by a great turmoil, and springing out of bed we picked our way nimbly
among the ranks of snoring teamsters on the floor and got to the front
windows of the long room. A glance revealed a strange spectacle, under the
moonlight. The crooked Carson was full to the brim, and its waters were
raging and foaming in the wildest way—sweeping around the sharp bends
at a furious speed, and bearing on their surface a chaos of logs, brush and
all sorts of rubbish. A depression, where its bed had once been, in other
times, was already filling, and in one or two places the water was beginning
to wash over the main bank. Men were flying hither and thither, bringing
cattle and wagons close up to the house, for the spot of high ground on
which it stood extended only some thirty feet in front and about a hundred

in the rear. Close to the old river bed just spoken of, stood a little log stable,
and in this our horses were lodged.

While we looked, the waters increased so fast in this place that in a few
minutes a torrent was roaring by the little stable and its margin encroaching
steadily on the logs. We suddenly realized that this flood was not a mere
holiday spectacle, but meant damage—and not only to the small log stable
but to the Overland buildings close to the main river, for the waves had now
come ashore and were creeping about the foundations and invading the
great hay-corral adjoining. We ran down and joined the crowd of excited
men and frightened animals. We waded knee-deep into the log stable,

unfastened the horses and waded out almost waist-deep, so fast the waters
increased. Then the crowd rushed in a body to the hay-corral and began to
tumble down the huge stacks of baled hay and roll the bales up on the high
ground by the house. Meantime it was discovered that Owens, an overland
driver, was missing, and a man ran to the large stable, and wading in, boot-
top deep, discovered him asleep in his bed, awoke him, and waded out
again. But Owens was drowsy and resumed his nap; but only for a minute
or two, for presently he turned in his bed, his hand dropped over the side
and came in contact with the cold water! It was up level with the mattress!
He waded out, breast-deep, almost, and the next moment the sun-burned
bricks melted down like sugar and the big building crumbled to a ruin and
was washed away in a twinkling.
At eleven o’clock only the roof of the little log stable was out of water,
and our inn was on an island in mid-ocean. As far as the eye could reach, in
the moonlight, there was no desert visible, but only a level waste of shining
water. The Indians were true prophets, but how did they get their
information? I am not able to answer the question. We remained cooped up
eight days and nights with that curious crew. Swearing, drinking and card
playing were the order of the day, and occasionally a fight was thrown in
for variety. Dirt and vermin—but let us forget those features; their profusion
is simply inconceivable—it is better that they remain so.
There were two men——however, this chapter is long enough.

CHAPTER XXXI.

There were two men in the company who caused me particular
discomfort. One was a little Swede, about twenty-five years old, who knew
only one song, and he was forever singing it. By day we were all crowded
into one small, stifling bar-room, and so there was no escaping this person’s
music. Through all the profanity, whisky-guzzling, “old sledge” and
quarreling, his monotonous song meandered with never a variation in its
tiresome sameness, and it seemed to me, at last, that I would be content to
die, in order to be rid of the torture. The other man was a stalwart ruffian
called “Arkansas,” who carried two revolvers in his belt and a bowie knife
projecting from his boot, and who was always drunk and always suffering
for a fight. But he was so feared, that nobody would accommodate him. He
would try all manner of little wary ruses to entrap somebody into an
offensive remark, and his face would light up now and then when he
fancied he was fairly on the scent of a fight, but invariably his victim would
elude his toils and then he would show a disappointment that was almost
pathetic. The landlord, Johnson, was a meek, well-meaning fellow, and
Arkansas fastened on him early, as a promising subject, and gave him no
rest day or night, for awhile. On the fourth morning, Arkansas got drunk
and sat himself down to wait for an opportunity. Presently Johnson came in,
just comfortably sociable with whisky, and said:
“I reckon the Pennsylvania ’lection—”
Arkansas raised his finger impressively and Johnson stopped. Arkansas
rose unsteadily and confronted him. Said he:
“Wh—what do you know a—about Pennsylvania? Answer me that. Wha
—what do you know ’bout Pennsylvania?”
“I was only goin’ to say—”
“You was only goin’ to say. You was! You was only goin’ to say—what
was you goin’ to say? That’s it! That’s what I want to know. I want to know

wha-what you (’ic) what you know about Pennsylvania, since you’re
makin’ yourself so d——d free. Answer me that!”
“Mr. Arkansas, if you’d only let me—”

“Who’s a henderin’ you? Don’t you insinuate nothing agin me!—don’t
you do it. Don’t you come in here bullyin’ around, and cussin’ and goin’ on
like a lunatic—don’t you do it. ’Coz I won’t stand it. If fight’s what you
want, out with it! I’m your man! Out with it!”
Said Johnson, backing into a corner, Arkansas following, menacingly:
“Why, I never said nothing, Mr. Arkansas. You don’t give a man no
chance. I was only goin’ to say that Pennsylvania was goin’ to have an
election next week—that was all—that was everything I was goin’ to say—I
wish I may never stir if it wasn’t.”
“Well then why d’n’t you say it? What did you come swellin’ around that
way for, and tryin’ to raise trouble?”
“Why I didn’t come swellin’ around, Mr. Arkansas—I just—”
“I’m a liar am I! Ger-reat Caesar’s ghost—”
“Oh, please, Mr. Arkansas, I never meant such a thing as that, I wish I
may die if I did. All the boys will tell you that I’ve always spoke well of
you, and respected you more’n any man in the house. Ask Smith. Ain’t it so,
Smith? Didn’t I say, no longer ago than last night, that for a man that was a
gentleman all the time and every way you took him, give me Arkansas? I’ll
leave it to any gentleman here if them warn’t the very words I used. Come,
now, Mr. Arkansas, le’s take a drink—le’s shake hands and take a drink.
Come up—everybody! It’s my treat. Come up, Bill, Tom, Bob, Scotty—
come up. I want you all to take a drink with me and Arkansas—old
Arkansas, I call him—bully old Arkansas. Gimme your hand agin. Look at
him, boys—just take a look at him. Thar stands the whitest man in America!
—and the man that denies it has got to fight me, that’s all. Gimme that old
flipper agin!”
They embraced, with drunken affection on the landlord’s part and
unresponsive toleration on the part of Arkansas, who, bribed by a drink, was
disappointed of his prey once more. But the foolish landlord was so happy
to have escaped butchery, that he went on talking when he ought to have
marched himself out of danger. The consequence was that Arkansas shortly
began to glower upon him dangerously, and presently said:
“Lan’lord, will you p-please make that remark over agin if you please?”
“I was a-sayin’ to Scotty that my father was up’ards of eighty year old
when he died.”

“Was that all that you said?”
“Yes, that was all.”
“Didn’t say nothing but that?”
“No—nothing.”
Then an uncomfortable silence.
Arkansas played with his glass a moment, lolling on his elbows on the
counter. Then he meditatively scratched his left shin with his right boot,
while the awkward silence continued. But presently he loafed away toward
the stove, looking dissatisfied; roughly shouldered two or three men out of a
comfortable position; occupied it himself, gave a sleeping dog a kick that
sent him howling under a bench, then spread his long legs and his blanket-
coat tails apart and proceeded to warm his back. In a little while he fell to
grumbling to himself, and soon he slouched back to the bar and said:
“Lan’lord, what’s your idea for rakin’ up old personalities and blowin’
about your father? Ain’t this company agreeable to you? Ain’t it? If this
company ain’t agreeable to you, p’r’aps we’d better leave. Is that your idea?
Is that what you’re coming at?”
“Why bless your soul, Arkansas, I warn’t thinking of such a thing. My
father and my mother—”
“Lan’lord, don’t crowd a man! Don’t do it. If nothing’ll do you but a
disturbance, out with it like a man (’ic)—but don’t rake up old bygones and
fling’em in the teeth of a passel of people that wants to be peaceable if they
could git a chance. What’s the matter with you this mornin’, anyway? I
never see a man carry on so.”
“Arkansas, I reely didn’t mean no harm, and I won’t go on with it if it’s
onpleasant to you. I reckon my licker’s got into my head, and what with the
flood, and havin’ so many to feed and look out for—”
“So that’s what’s a-ranklin’ in your heart, is it? You want us to leave do
you? There’s too many on us. You want us to pack up and swim. Is that it?
Come!”
“Please be reasonable, Arkansas. Now you know that I ain’t the man to
—”
“Are you a threatenin’ me? Are you? By George, the man don’t live that
can skeer me! Don’t you try to come that game, my chicken—’cuz I can

stand a good deal, but I won’t stand that. Come out from behind that bar till
I clean you! You want to drive us out, do you, you sneakin’ underhanded
hound! Come out from behind that bar! I’ll learn you to bully and badger
and browbeat a gentleman that’s forever trying to befriend you and keep
you out of trouble!”
“Please, Arkansas, please don’t shoot! If there’s got to be bloodshed—”
“Do you hear that, gentlemen? Do you hear him talk about bloodshed?
So it’s blood you want, is it, you ravin’ desperado! You’d made up your
mind to murder somebody this mornin’—I knowed it perfectly well. I’m the
man, am I? It’s me you’re goin’ to murder, is it? But you can’t do it ’thout I
get one chance first, you thievin’ black-hearted, white-livered son of a
nigger! Draw your weepon!”
With that, Arkansas began to shoot, and the landlord to clamber over
benches, men and every sort of obstacle in a frantic desire to escape. In the
midst of the wild hubbub the landlord crashed through a glass door, and as
Arkansas charged after him the landlord’s wife suddenly appeared in the
doorway and confronted the desperado with a pair of scissors! Her fury was
magnificent. With head erect and flashing eye she stood a moment and then
advanced, with her weapon raised. The astonished ruffian hesitated, and
then fell back a step. She followed. She backed him step by step into the
middle of the bar-room, and then, while the wondering crowd closed up and
gazed, she gave him such another tongue-lashing as never a cowed and
shamefaced braggart got before, perhaps! As she finished and retired
victorious, a roar of applause shook the house, and every man ordered
“drinks for the crowd” in one and the same breath.

The lesson was entirely sufficient. The reign of terror was over, and the
Arkansas domination broken for good. During the rest of the season of
island captivity, there was one man who sat apart in a state of permanent
humiliation, never mixing in any quarrel or uttering a boast, and never
resenting the insults the once cringing crew now constantly leveled at him,
and that man was “Arkansas.”
By the fifth or sixth morning the waters had subsided from the land, but
the stream in the old river bed was still high and swift and there was no
possibility of crossing it. On the eighth it was still too high for an entirely
safe passage, but life in the inn had become next to insupportable by reason
of the dirt, drunkenness, fighting, etc., and so we made an effort to get
away. In the midst of a heavy snow-storm we embarked in a canoe, taking
our saddles aboard and towing our horses after us by their halters. The
Prussian, Ollendorff, was in the bow, with a paddle, Ballou paddled in the
middle, and I sat in the stern holding the halters. When the horses lost their
footing and began to swim, Ollendorff got frightened, for there was great
danger that the horses would make our aim uncertain, and it was plain that
if we failed to land at a certain spot the current would throw us off and
almost surely cast us into the main Carson, which was a boiling torrent,
now. Such a catastrophe would be death, in all probability, for we would be
swept to sea in the “Sink” or overturned and drowned. We warned

Ollendorff to keep his wits about him and handle himself carefully, but it
was useless; the moment the bow touched the bank, he made a spring and
the canoe whirled upside down in ten-foot water.

Ollendorff seized some brush and dragged himself ashore, but Ballou and
I had to swim for it, encumbered with our overcoats. But we held on to the
canoe, and although we were washed down nearly to the Carson, we
managed to push the boat ashore and make a safe landing. We were cold
and water- soaked, but safe. The horses made a landing, too, but our saddles
were gone, of course. We tied the animals in the sage-brush and there they
had to stay for twenty-four hours. We baled out the canoe and ferried over
some food and blankets for them, but we slept one more night in the inn
before making another venture on our journey.
The next morning it was still snowing furiously when we got away with
our new stock of saddles and accoutrements. We mounted and started. The
snow lay so deep on the ground that there was no sign of a road perceptible,
and the snow-fall was so thick that we could not see more than a hundred
yards ahead, else we could have guided our course by the mountain ranges.
The case looked dubious, but Ollendorff said his instinct was as sensitive as
any compass, and that he could “strike a bee-line” for Carson city and never

diverge from it. He said that if he were to straggle a single point out of the
true line his instinct would assail him like an outraged conscience.
Consequently we dropped into his wake happy and content. For half an
hour we poked along warily enough, but at the end of that time we came
upon a fresh trail, and Ollendorff shouted proudly:
“I knew I was as dead certain as a compass, boys! Here we are, right in
somebody’s tracks that will hunt the way for us without any trouble. Let’s
hurry up and join company with the party.”
So we put the horses into as much of a trot as the deep snow would allow,
and before long it was evident that we were gaining on our predecessors,
for the tracks grew more distinct. We hurried along, and at the end of an
hour the tracks looked still newer and fresher—but what surprised us was,
that the number of travelers in advance of us seemed to steadily increase.
We wondered how so large a party came to be traveling at such a time and
in such a solitude. Somebody suggested that it must be a company of
soldiers from the fort, and so we accepted that solution and jogged along a
little faster still, for they could not be far off now. But the tracks still
multiplied, and we began to think the platoon of soldiers was miraculously
expanding into a regiment—Ballou said they had already increased to five
hundred! Presently he stopped his horse and said:
“Boys, these are our own tracks, and we’ve actually been circussing
round and round in a circle for more than two hours, out here in this blind
desert! By George this is perfectly hydraulic!”

Then the old man waxed wroth and abusive. He called Ollendorff all
manner of hard names—said he never saw such a lurid fool as he was, and
ended with the peculiarly venomous opinion that he “did not know as much
as a logarythm!”
We certainly had been following our own tracks. Ollendorff and his
“mental compass” were in disgrace from that moment.
After all our hard travel, here we were on the bank of the stream again,
with the inn beyond dimly outlined through the driving snow-fall. While we
were considering what to do, the young Swede landed from the canoe and
took his pedestrian way Carson-wards, singing his same tiresome song
about his “sister and his brother” and “the child in the grave with its
mother,” and in a short minute faded and disappeared in the white oblivion.
He was never heard of again. He no doubt got bewildered and lost, and
Fatigue delivered him over to Sleep and Sleep betrayed him to Death.
Possibly he followed our treacherous tracks till he became exhausted and
dropped.

Presently the Overland stage forded the now fast receding stream and
started toward Carson on its first trip since the flood came. We hesitated no
longer, now, but took up our march in its wake, and trotted merrily along,
for we had good confidence in the driver’s bump of locality. But our horses
were no match for the fresh stage team. We were soon left out of sight; but
it was no matter, for we had the deep ruts the wheels made for a guide. By
this time it was three in the afternoon, and consequently it was not very
long before night came—and not with a lingering twilight, but with a
sudden shutting down like a cellar door, as is its habit in that country. The
snowfall was still as thick as ever, and of course we could not see fifteen
steps before us; but all about us the white glare of the snow-bed enabled us
to discern the smooth sugar-loaf mounds made by the covered sage-bushes,
and just in front of us the two faint grooves which we knew were the
steadily filling and slowly disappearing wheel-tracks.
Now those sage-bushes were all about the same height—three or four
feet; they stood just about seven feet apart, all over the vast desert; each of
them was a mere snow-mound, now; in any direction that you proceeded
(the same as in a well laid out orchard) you would find yourself moving
down a distinctly defined avenue, with a row of these snow-mounds an

either side of it—an avenue the customary width of a road, nice and level in
its breadth, and rising at the sides in the most natural way, by reason of the
mounds. But we had not thought of this. Then imagine the chilly thrill that
shot through us when it finally occurred to us, far in the night, that since the
last faint trace of the wheel-tracks had long ago been buried from sight, we
might now be wandering down a mere sage-brush avenue, miles away from
the road and diverging further and further away from it all the time. Having
a cake of ice slipped down one’s back is placid comfort compared to it.
There was a sudden leap and stir of blood that had been asleep for an hour,
and as sudden a rousing of all the drowsing activities in our minds and
bodies. We were alive and awake at once—and shaking and quaking with
consternation, too. There was an instant halting and dismounting, a bending
low and an anxious scanning of the road-bed. Useless, of course; for if a
faint depression could not be discerned from an altitude of four or five feet
above it, it certainly could not with one’s nose nearly against it.

CHAPTER XXXII.

We seemed to be in a road, but that was no proof. We tested this by
walking off in various directions—the regular snow-mounds and the regular
avenues between them convinced each man that he had found the true road,
and that the others had found only false ones. Plainly the situation was
desperate. We were cold and stiff and the horses were tired. We decided to
build a sage-brush fire and camp out till morning. This was wise, because if
we were wandering from the right road and the snow-storm continued
another day our case would be the next thing to hopeless if we kept on.
All agreed that a camp fire was what would come nearest to saving us,
now, and so we set about building it. We could find no matches, and so we
tried to make shift with the pistols. Not a man in the party had ever tried to
do such a thing before, but not a man in the party doubted that it could be
done, and without any trouble—because every man in the party had read
about it in books many a time and had naturally come to believe it, with
trusting simplicity, just as he had long ago accepted and believed that other
common book-fraud about Indians and lost hunters making a fire by
rubbing two dry sticks together.
We huddled together on our knees in the deep snow, and the horses put
their noses together and bowed their patient heads over us; and while the
feathery flakes eddied down and turned us into a group of white statuary,
we proceeded with the momentous experiment. We broke twigs from a sage
bush and piled them on a little cleared place in the shelter of our bodies. In
the course of ten or fifteen minutes all was ready, and then, while
conversation ceased and our pulses beat low with anxious suspense,
Ollendorff applied his revolver, pulled the trigger and blew the pile clear
out of the county! It was the flattest failure that ever was.

This was distressing, but it paled before a greater horror—the horses
were gone! I had been appointed to hold the bridles, but in my absorbing
anxiety over the pistol experiment I had unconsciously dropped them and
the released animals had walked off in the storm. It was useless to try to
follow them, for their footfalls could make no sound, and one could pass
within two yards of the creatures and never see them. We gave them up
without an effort at recovering them, and cursed the lying books that said
horses would stay by their masters for protection and companionship in a
distressful time like ours.
We were miserable enough, before; we felt still more forlorn, now.
Patiently, but with blighted hope, we broke more sticks and piled them, and
once more the Prussian shot them into annihilation. Plainly, to light a fire
with a pistol was an art requiring practice and experience, and the middle of
a desert at midnight in a snow-storm was not a good place or time for the
acquiring of the accomplishment. We gave it up and tried the other. Each
man took a couple of sticks and fell to chafing them together. At the end of
half an hour we were thoroughly chilled, and so were the sticks. We bitterly
execrated the Indians, the hunters and the books that had betrayed us with
the silly device, and wondered dismally what was next to be done. At this
critical moment Mr. Ballou fished out four matches from the rubbish of an
overlooked pocket. To have found four gold bars would have seemed poor
and cheap good luck compared to this.

One cannot think how good a match looks under such circumstances—or
how lovable and precious, and sacredly beautiful to the eye. This time we
gathered sticks with high hopes; and when Mr. Ballou prepared to light the
first match, there was an amount of interest centred upon him that pages of
writing could not describe. The match burned hopefully a moment, and then
went out. It could not have carried more regret with it if it had been a
human life. The next match simply flashed and died. The wind puffed the
third one out just as it was on the imminent verge of success. We gathered
together closer than ever, and developed a solicitude that was rapt and
painful, as Mr. Ballou scratched our last hope on his leg. It lit, burned blue
and sickly, and then budded into a robust flame. Shading it with his hands,
the old gentleman bent gradually down and every heart went with him—
everybody, too, for that matter—and blood and breath stood still. The flame
touched the sticks at last, took gradual hold upon them—hesitated—took a
stronger hold—hesitated again—held its breath five heart-breaking seconds,
then gave a sort of human gasp and went out.

Nobody said a word for several minutes. It was a solemn sort of silence;
even the wind put on a stealthy, sinister quiet, and made no more noise than
the falling flakes of snow. Finally a sad-voiced conversation began, and it
was soon apparent that in each of our hearts lay the conviction that this was

our last night with the living. I had so hoped that I was the only one who
felt so. When the others calmly acknowledged their conviction, it sounded
like the summons itself. Ollendorff said:
“Brothers, let us die together. And let us go without one hard feeling
towards each other. Let us forget and forgive bygones. I know that you have
felt hard towards me for turning over the canoe, and for knowing too much
and leading you round and round in the snow—but I meant well; forgive
me. I acknowledge freely that I have had hard feelings against Mr. Ballou
for abusing me and calling me a logarythm, which is a thing I do not know
what, but no doubt a thing considered disgraceful and unbecoming in
America, and it has scarcely been out of my mind and has hurt me a great
deal—but let it go; I forgive Mr. Ballou with all my heart, and—”
Poor Ollendorff broke down and the tears came. He was not alone, for I
was crying too, and so was Mr. Ballou. Ollendorff got his voice again and
forgave me for things I had done and said. Then he got out his bottle of
whisky and said that whether he lived or died he would never touch another
drop. He said he had given up all hope of life, and although ill-prepared,
was ready to submit humbly to his fate; that he wished he could be spared a
little longer, not for any selfish reason, but to make a thorough reform in his
character, and by devoting himself to helping the poor, nursing the sick, and
pleading with the people to guard themselves against the evils of
intemperance, make his life a beneficent example to the young, and lay it
down at last with the precious reflection that it had not been lived in vain.
He ended by saying that his reform should begin at this moment, even here
in the presence of death, since no longer time was to be vouchsafed wherein
to prosecute it to men’s help and benefit—and with that he threw away the
bottle of whisky.

Mr. Ballou made remarks of similar purport, and began the reform he
could not live to continue, by throwing away the ancient pack of cards that
had solaced our captivity during the flood and made it bearable.
He said he never gambled, but still was satisfied that the meddling with
cards in any way was immoral and injurious, and no man could be wholly
pure and blemishless without eschewing them. “And therefore,” continued
he, “in doing this act I already feel more in sympathy with that spiritual
saturnalia necessary to entire and obsolete reform.” These rolling syllables
touched him as no intelligible eloquence could have done, and the old man
sobbed with a mournfulness not unmingled with satisfaction.
My own remarks were of the same tenor as those of my comrades, and I
know that the feelings that prompted them were heartfelt and sincere. We
were all sincere, and all deeply moved and earnest, for we were in the
presence of death and without hope. I threw away my pipe, and in doing it
felt that at last I was free of a hated vice and one that had ridden me like a
tyrant all my days. While I yet talked, the thought of the good I might have
done in the world and the still greater good I might now do, with these new
incentives and higher and better aims to guide me if I could only be spared
a few years longer, overcame me and the tears came again. We put our arms
about each other’s necks and awaited the warning drowsiness that precedes
death by freezing.

It came stealing over us presently, and then we bade each other a last
farewell. A delicious dreaminess wrought its web about my yielding senses,
while the snow-flakes wove a winding sheet about my conquered body.
Oblivion came. The battle of life was done.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

I do not know how long I was in a state of forgetfulness, but it seemed an
age. A vague consciousness grew upon me by degrees, and then came a
gathering anguish of pain in my limbs and through all my body. I
shuddered. The thought flitted through my brain, “this is death—this is the
hereafter.”
Then came a white upheaval at my side, and a voice said, with bitterness:
“Will some gentleman be so good as to kick me behind?”
It was Ballou—at least it was a towzled snow image in a sitting posture,
with Ballou’s voice.
I rose up, and there in the gray dawn, not fifteen steps from us, were the
frame buildings of a stage station, and under a shed stood our still saddled
and bridled horses!
An arched snow-drift broke up, now, and Ollendorff emerged from it, and
the three of us sat and stared at the houses without speaking a word. We
really had nothing to say. We were like the profane man who could not “do
the subject justice,” the whole situation was so painfully ridiculous and
humiliating that words were tame and we did not know where to commence
anyhow.
The joy in our hearts at our deliverance was poisoned; well-nigh
dissipated, indeed. We presently began to grow pettish by degrees, and
sullen; and then, angry at each other, angry at ourselves, angry at everything
in general, we moodily dusted the snow from our clothing and in unsociable
single file plowed our way to the horses, unsaddled them, and sought
shelter in the station.
I have scarcely exaggerated a detail of this curious and absurd adventure.
It occurred almost exactly as I have stated it. We actually went into camp in

a snow-drift in a desert, at midnight in a storm, forlorn and hopeless, within
fifteen steps of a comfortable inn.
For two hours we sat apart in the station and ruminated in disgust. The
mystery was gone, now, and it was plain enough why the horses had
deserted us. Without a doubt they were under that shed a quarter of a minute
after they had left us, and they must have overheard and enjoyed all our
confessions and lamentations.
After breakfast we felt better, and the zest of life soon came back. The
world looked bright again, and existence was as dear to us as ever. Presently
an uneasiness came over me—grew upon me—assailed me without ceasing.
Alas, my regeneration was not complete—I wanted to smoke! I resisted
with all my strength, but the flesh was weak. I wandered away alone and
wrestled with myself an hour. I recalled my promises of reform and
preached to myself persuasively, upbraidingly, exhaustively. But it was all
vain, I shortly found myself sneaking among the snow-drifts hunting for my
pipe. I discovered it after a considerable search, and crept away to hide
myself and enjoy it. I remained behind the barn a good while, asking myself
how I would feel if my braver, stronger, truer comrades should catch me in
my degradation. At last I lit the pipe, and no human being can feel meaner
and baser than I did then. I was ashamed of being in my own pitiful
company. Still dreading discovery, I felt that perhaps the further side of the
barn would be somewhat safer, and so I turned the corner. As I turned the
one corner, smoking, Ollendorff turned the other with his bottle to his lips,
and between us sat unconscious Ballou deep in a game of “solitaire” with
the old greasy cards!

Absurdity could go no farther. We shook hands and agreed to say no
more about “reform” and “examples to the rising generation.”
The station we were at was at the verge of the Twenty-six-Mile Desert. If
we had approached it half an hour earlier the night before, we must have
heard men shouting there and firing pistols; for they were expecting some
sheep drovers and their flocks and knew that they would infallibly get lost
and wander out of reach of help unless guided by sounds.
While we remained at the station, three of the drovers arrived, nearly
exhausted with their wanderings, but two others of their party were never
heard of afterward.
We reached Carson in due time, and took a rest. This rest, together with
preparations for the journey to Esmeralda, kept us there a week, and the
delay gave us the opportunity to be present at the trial of the great land-slide
case of Hyde vs. Morgan—an episode which is famous in Nevada to this
day. After a word or two of necessary explanation, I will set down the
history of this singular affair just as it transpired.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The mountains are very high and steep about Carson, Eagle and Washoe
Valleys—very high and very steep, and so when the snow gets to melting
off fast in the Spring and the warm surface-earth begins to moisten and
soften, the disastrous land-slides commence. The reader cannot know what
a land-slide is, unless he has lived in that country and seen the whole side of
a mountain taken off some fine morning and deposited down in the valley,
leaving a vast, treeless, unsightly scar upon the mountain’s front to keep the
circumstance fresh in his memory all the years that he may go on living
within seventy miles of that place.
General Buncombe was shipped out to Nevada in the invoice of
Territorial officers, to be United States Attorney. He considered himself a
lawyer of parts, and he very much wanted an opportunity to manifest it—
partly for the pure gratification of it and partly because his salary was
Territorially meagre (which is a strong expression). Now the older citizens
of a new territory look down upon the rest of the world with a calm,
benevolent compassion, as long as it keeps out of the way—when it gets in
the way they snub it. Sometimes this latter takes the shape of a practical
joke.
One morning Dick Hyde rode furiously up to General Buncombe’s door
in Carson city and rushed into his presence without stopping to tie his
horse. He seemed much excited. He told the General that he wanted him to
conduct a suit for him and would pay him five hundred dollars if he
achieved a victory. And then, with violent gestures and a world of profanity,
he poured out his grief. He said it was pretty well known that for some
years he had been farming (or ranching as the more customary term is) in
Washoe District, and making a successful thing of it, and furthermore it was
known that his ranch was situated just in the edge of the valley, and that
Tom Morgan owned a ranch immediately above it on the mountain side.

And now the trouble was, that one of those hated and dreaded land-slides
had come and slid Morgan’s ranch, fences, cabins, cattle, barns and
everything down on top of his ranch and exactly covered up every single
vestige of his property, to a depth of about thirty-eight feet. Morgan was in
possession and refused to vacate the premises—said he was occupying his
own cabin and not interfering with anybody else’s—and said the cabin was
standing on the same dirt and same ranch it had always stood on, and he
would like to see anybody make him vacate.
“And when I reminded him,” said Hyde, weeping, “that it was on top of
my ranch and that he was trespassing, he had the infernal meanness to ask
me why didn’t I stay on my ranch and hold possession when I see him a-
coming! Why didn’t I stay on it, the blathering lunatic—by George, when I
heard that racket and looked up that hill it was just like the whole world was
a-ripping and a-tearing down that mountain side—splinters, and cord-wood,
thunder and lightning, hail and snow, odds and ends of hay stacks, and
awful clouds of dust!—trees going end over end in the air, rocks as big as a
house jumping ’bout a thousand feet high and busting into ten million

pieces, cattle turned inside out and a-coming head on with their tails
hanging out between their teeth!—and in the midst of all that wrack and
destruction sot that cussed Morgan on his gate-post, a-wondering why I
didn’t stay and hold possession! Laws bless me, I just took one glimpse,
General, and lit out’n the county in three jumps exactly.
“But what grinds me is that that Morgan hangs on there and won’t move
off’n that ranch—says it’s his’n and he’s going to keep it—likes it better’n
he did when it was higher up the hill. Mad! Well, I’ve been so mad for two
days I couldn’t find my way to town—been wandering around in the brush
in a starving condition—got anything here to drink, General? But I’m here
now, and I’m a-going to law. You hear me!”
Never in all the world, perhaps, were a man’s feelings so outraged as
were the General’s. He said he had never heard of such high-handed
conduct in all his life as this Morgan’s. And he said there was no use in
going to law—Morgan had no shadow of right to remain where he was—
nobody in the wide world would uphold him in it, and no lawyer would take
his case and no judge listen to it. Hyde said that right there was where he
was mistaken—everybody in town sustained Morgan; Hal Brayton, a very
smart lawyer, had taken his case; the courts being in vacation, it was to be
tried before a referee, and ex-Governor Roop had already been appointed to
that office and would open his court in a large public hall near the hotel at
two that afternoon.
The General was amazed. He said he had suspected before that the
people of that Territory were fools, and now he knew it. But he said rest
easy, rest easy and collect the witnesses, for the victory was just as certain
as if the conflict were already over. Hyde wiped away his tears and left.
At two in the afternoon referee Roop’s Court opened and Roop appeared
throned among his sheriffs, the witnesses, and spectators, and wearing upon
his face a solemnity so awe-inspiring that some of his fellow-conspirators
had misgivings that maybe he had not comprehended, after all, that this was
merely a joke. An unearthly stillness prevailed, for at the slightest noise the
judge uttered sternly the command:
“Order in the Court!”
And the sheriffs promptly echoed it. Presently the General elbowed his
way through the crowd of spectators, with his arms full of law-books, and
on his ears fell an order from the judge which was the first respectful

recognition of his high official dignity that had ever saluted them, and it
trickled pleasantly through his whole system:
“Way for the United States Attorney!”
The witnesses were called—legislators, high government officers,
ranchmen, miners, Indians, Chinamen, negroes. Three fourths of them were
called by the defendant Morgan, but no matter, their testimony invariably
went in favor of the plaintiff Hyde. Each new witness only added new
testimony to the absurdity of a man’s claiming to own another man’s
property because his farm had slid down on top of it. Then the Morgan
lawyers made their speeches, and seemed to make singularly weak ones—
they did really nothing to help the Morgan cause. And now the General,
with exultation in his face, got up and made an impassioned effort; he
pounded the table, he banged the law-books, he shouted, and roared, and
howled, he quoted from everything and everybody, poetry, sarcasm,
statistics, history, pathos, bathos, blasphemy, and wound up with a grand
war-whoop for free speech, freedom of the press, free schools, the Glorious
Bird of America and the principles of eternal justice! [Applause.]

When the General sat down, he did it with the conviction that if there was
anything in good strong testimony, a great speech and believing and
admiring countenances all around, Mr. Morgan’s case was killed. Ex-

Governor Roop leant his head upon his hand for some minutes, thinking,
and the still audience waited for his decision. Then he got up and stood
erect, with bended head, and thought again. Then he walked the floor with
long, deliberate strides, his chin in his hand, and still the audience waited.
At last he returned to his throne, seated himself, and began impressively:
“Gentlemen, I feel the great responsibility that rests upon me this day.
This is no ordinary case. On the contrary it is plain that it is the most
solemn and awful that ever man was called upon to decide. Gentlemen, I
have listened attentively to the evidence, and have perceived that the weight
of it, the overwhelming weight of it, is in favor of the plaintiff Hyde. I have
listened also to the remarks of counsel, with high interest—and especially
will I commend the masterly and irrefutable logic of the distinguished
gentleman who represents the plaintiff. But gentlemen, let us beware how
we allow mere human testimony, human ingenuity in argument and human
ideas of equity, to influence us at a moment so solemn as this. Gentlemen, it
ill becomes us, worms as we are, to meddle with the decrees of Heaven. It
is plain to me that Heaven, in its inscrutable wisdom, has seen fit to move
this defendant’s ranch for a purpose. We are but creatures, and we must
submit. If Heaven has chosen to favor the defendant Morgan in this marked
and wonderful manner; and if Heaven, dissatisfied with the position of the
Morgan ranch upon the mountain side, has chosen to remove it to a position
more eligible and more advantageous for its owner, it ill becomes us,
insects as we are, to question the legality of the act or inquire into the
reasons that prompted it. No—Heaven created the ranches and it is
Heaven’s prerogative to rearrange them, to experiment with them around at
its pleasure. It is for us to submit, without repining.

“I warn you that this thing which has happened is a thing with which the
sacrilegious hands and brains and tongues of men must not meddle.
Gentlemen, it is the verdict of this court that the plaintiff, Richard Hyde, has
been deprived of his ranch by the visitation of God! And from this decision
there is no appeal.”
Buncombe seized his cargo of law-books and plunged out of the court-
room frantic with indignation. He pronounced Roop to be a miraculous
fool, an inspired idiot. In all good faith he returned at night and
remonstrated with Roop upon his extravagant decision, and implored him to
walk the floor and think for half an hour, and see if he could not figure out
some sort of modification of the verdict. Roop yielded at last and got up to
walk. He walked two hours and a half, and at last his face lit up happily and
he told Buncombe it had occurred to him that the ranch underneath the new
Morgan ranch still belonged to Hyde, that his title to the ground was just as
good as it had ever been, and therefore he was of opinion that Hyde had a
right to dig it out from under there and—
The General never waited to hear the end of it. He was always an
impatient and irascible man, that way. At the end of two months the fact
that he had been played upon with a joke had managed to bore itself, like
another Hoosac Tunnel, through the solid adamant of his understanding.

CHAPTER XXXV.

When we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback, we had an addition to the
company in the person of Capt. John Nye, the Governor’s brother. He had a
good memory, and a tongue hung in the middle. This is a combination
which gives immortality to conversation. Capt. John never suffered the talk
to flag or falter once during the hundred and twenty miles of the journey. In
addition to his conversational powers, he had one or two other endowments
of a marked character. One was a singular “handiness” about doing
anything and everything, from laying out a railroad or organizing a political
party, down to sewing on buttons, shoeing a horse, or setting a broken leg,
or a hen. Another was a spirit of accommodation that prompted him to take
the needs, difficulties and perplexities of anybody and everybody upon his
own shoulders at any and all times, and dispose of them with admirable
facility and alacrity—hence he always managed to find vacant beds in
crowded inns, and plenty to eat in the emptiest larders. And finally,
wherever he met a man, woman or child, in camp, inn or desert, he either
knew such parties personally or had been acquainted with a relative of the
same. Such another traveling comrade was never seen before. I cannot
forbear giving a specimen of the way in which he overcame difficulties. On
the second day out, we arrived, very tired and hungry, at a poor little inn in
the desert, and were told that the house was full, no provisions on hand, and
neither hay nor barley to spare for the horses—must move on. The rest of us
wanted to hurry on while it was yet light, but Capt. John insisted on
stopping awhile. We dismounted and entered. There was no welcome for us
on any face. Capt. John began his blandishments, and within twenty
minutes he had accomplished the following things, viz.: found old
acquaintances in three teamsters; discovered that he used to go to school
with the landlord’s mother; recognized his wife as a lady whose life he had
saved once in California, by stopping her runaway horse; mended a child’s
broken toy and won the favor of its mother, a guest of the inn; helped the

hostler bleed a horse, and prescribed for another horse that had the
“heaves”; treated the entire party three times at the landlord’s bar; produced
a later paper than anybody had seen for a week and sat himself down to
read the news to a deeply interested audience. The result, summed up, was
as follows: The hostler found plenty of feed for our horses; we had a trout
supper, an exceedingly sociable time after it, good beds to sleep in, and a
surprising breakfast in the morning—and when we left, we left lamented by
all! Capt. John had some bad traits, but he had some uncommonly valuable
ones to offset them with.

Esmeralda was in many respects another Humboldt, but in a little more
forward state. The claims we had been paying assessments on were entirely
worthless, and we threw them away. The principal one cropped out of the
top of a knoll that was fourteen feet high, and the inspired Board of
Directors were running a tunnel under that knoll to strike the ledge. The
tunnel would have to be seventy feet long, and would then strike the ledge
at the same dept that a shaft twelve feet deep would have reached! The
Board were living on the “assessments.” [N.B.—This hint comes too late
for the enlightenment of New York silver miners; they have already learned
all about this neat trick by experience.] The Board had no desire to strike
the ledge, knowing that it was as barren of silver as a curbstone. This
reminiscence calls to mind Jim Townsend’s tunnel. He had paid
assessments on a mine called the “Daley” till he was well-nigh penniless.
Finally an assessment was levied to run a tunnel two hundred and fifty feet
on the Daley, and Townsend went up on the hill to look into matters.

He found the Daley cropping out of the apex of an exceedingly sharp-
pointed peak, and a couple of men up there “facing” the proposed tunnel.
Townsend made a calculation. Then he said to the men:
“So you have taken a contract to run a tunnel into this hill two hundred
and fifty feet to strike this ledge?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, do you know that you have got one of the most expensive and
arduous undertakings before you that was ever conceived by man?”
“Why no—how is that?”
“Because this hill is only twenty-five feet through from side to side; and
so you have got to build two hundred and twenty-five feet of your tunnel on
trestle-work!”

The ways of silver mining Boards are exceedingly dark and sinuous.
We took up various claims, and commenced shafts and tunnels on them,
but never finished any of them. We had to do a certain amount of work on
each to “hold” it, else other parties could seize our property after the
expiration of ten days. We were always hunting up new claims and doing a
little work on them and then waiting for a buyer—who never came. We
never found any ore that would yield more than fifty dollars a ton; and as

the mills charged fifty dollars a ton for working ore and extracting the
silver, our pocket-money melted steadily away and none returned to take its
place. We lived in a little cabin and cooked for ourselves; and altogether it
was a hard life, though a hopeful one—for we never ceased to expect
fortune and a customer to burst upon us some day.
At last, when flour reached a dollar a pound, and money could not be
borrowed on the best security at less than eight per cent a month (I being
without the security, too), I abandoned mining and went to milling. That is
to say, I went to work as a common laborer in a quartz mill, at ten dollars a
week and board.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

I had already learned how hard and long and dismal a task it is to burrow
down into the bowels of the earth and get out the coveted ore; and now I
learned that the burrowing was only half the work; and that to get the silver
out of the ore was the dreary and laborious other half of it. We had to turn
out at six in the morning and keep at it till dark. This mill was a six-stamp
affair, driven by steam. Six tall, upright rods of iron, as large as a man’s
ankle, and heavily shod with a mass of iron and steel at their lower ends,
were framed together like a gate, and these rose and fell, one after the other,
in a ponderous dance, in an iron box called a “battery.” Each of these rods
or stamps weighed six hundred pounds. One of us stood by the battery all
day long, breaking up masses of silver-bearing rock with a sledge and
shoveling it into the battery. The ceaseless dance of the stamps pulverized
the rock to powder, and a stream of water that trickled into the battery
turned it to a creamy paste. The minutest particles were driven through a
fine wire screen which fitted close around the battery, and were washed into
great tubs warmed by super-heated steam—amalgamating pans, they are
called. The mass of pulp in the pans was kept constantly stirred up by
revolving “mullers.” A quantity of quicksilver was kept always in the
battery, and this seized some of the liberated gold and silver particles and
held on to them; quicksilver was shaken in a fine shower into the pans, also,
about every half hour, through a buckskin sack. Quantities of coarse salt
and sulphate of copper were added, from time to time to assist the
amalgamation by destroying base metals which coated the gold and silver
and would not let it unite with the quicksilver.

All these tiresome things we had to attend to constantly. Streams of dirty
water flowed always from the pans and were carried off in broad wooden
troughs to the ravine. One would not suppose that atoms of gold and silver
would float on top of six inches of water, but they did; and in order to catch
them, coarse blankets were laid in the troughs, and little obstructing
“riffles” charged with quicksilver were placed here and there across the
troughs also. These riffles had to be cleaned and the blankets washed out
every evening, to get their precious accumulations—and after all this
eternity of trouble one third of the silver and gold in a ton of rock would
find its way to the end of the troughs in the ravine at last and have to be
worked over again some day. There is nothing so aggravating as silver
milling. There never was any idle time in that mill. There was always
something to do. It is a pity that Adam could not have gone straight out of
Eden into a quartz mill, in order to understand the full force of his doom to
“earn his bread by the sweat of his brow.” Every now and then, during the
day, we had to scoop some pulp out of the pans, and tediously “wash” it in a
horn spoon—wash it little by little over the edge till at last nothing was left
but some little dull globules of quicksilver in the bottom. If they were soft
and yielding, the pan needed some salt or some sulphate of copper or some
other chemical rubbish to assist digestion; if they were crisp to the touch
and would retain a dint, they were freighted with all the silver and gold they
could seize and hold, and consequently the pan needed a fresh charge of
quicksilver. When there was nothing else to do, one could always “screen

tailings.” That is to say, he could shovel up the dried sand that had washed
down to the ravine through the troughs and dash it against an upright wire
screen to free it from pebbles and prepare it for working over.
The process of amalgamation differed in the various mills, and this
included changes in style of pans and other machinery, and a great diversity
of opinion existed as to the best in use, but none of the methods employed,
involved the principle of milling ore without “screening the tailings.” Of all
recreations in the world, screening tailings on a hot day, with a long-
handled shovel, is the most undesirable.

At the end of the week the machinery was stopped and we “cleaned up.”
That is to say, we got the pulp out of the pans and batteries, and washed the
mud patiently away till nothing was left but the long accumulating mass of
quicksilver, with its imprisoned treasures. This we made into heavy,
compact snow-balls, and piled them up in a bright, luxurious heap for
inspection. Making these snow-balls cost me a fine gold ring—that and
ignorance together; for the quicksilver invaded the ring with the same
facility with which water saturates a sponge—separated its particles and the
ring crumbled to pieces.
We put our pile of quicksilver balls into an iron retort that had a pipe
leading from it to a pail of water, and then applied a roasting heat. The
quicksilver turned to vapor, escaped through the pipe into the pail, and the
water turned it into good wholesome quicksilver again. Quicksilver is very

costly, and they never waste it. On opening the retort, there was our week’s
work—a lump of pure white, frosty looking silver, twice as large as a man’s
head. Perhaps a fifth of the mass was gold, but the color of it did not show
—would not have shown if two thirds of it had been gold. We melted it up
and made a solid brick of it by pouring it into an iron brick-mould.
By such a tedious and laborious process were silver bricks obtained. This
mill was but one of many others in operation at the time. The first one in
Nevada was built at Egan Canyon and was a small insignificant affair and
compared most unfavorably with some of the immense establishments
afterwards located at Virginia City and elsewhere.

From our bricks a little corner was chipped off for the “fire-assay”—a
method used to determine the proportions of gold, silver and base metals in
the mass. This is an interesting process. The chip is hammered out as thin as
paper and weighed on scales so fine and sensitive that if you weigh a two-
inch scrap of paper on them and then write your name on the paper with a
course, soft pencil and weigh it again, the scales will take marked notice of
the addition.
Then a little lead (also weighed) is rolled up with the flake of silver and
the two are melted at a great heat in a small vessel called a cupel, made by
compressing bone ashes into a cup-shape in a steel mold. The base metals

oxydize and are absorbed with the lead into the pores of the cupel. A button
or globule of perfectly pure gold and silver is left behind, and by weighing
it and noting the loss, the assayer knows the proportion of base metal the
brick contains. He has to separate the gold from the silver now. The button
is hammered out flat and thin, put in the furnace and kept some time at a red
heat; after cooling it off it is rolled up like a quill and heated in a glass
vessel containing nitric acid; the acid dissolves the silver and leaves the
gold pure and ready to be weighed on its own merits. Then salt water is
poured into the vessel containing the dissolved silver and the silver returns
to palpable form again and sinks to the bottom. Nothing now remains but to
weigh it; then the proportions of the several metals contained in the brick
are known, and the assayer stamps the value of the brick upon its surface.
The sagacious reader will know now, without being told, that the
speculative miner, in getting a “fire-assay” made of a piece of rock from his
mine (to help him sell the same), was not in the habit of picking out the
least valuable fragment of rock on his dump-pile, but quite the contrary. I
have seen men hunt over a pile of nearly worthless quartz for an hour, and
at last find a little piece as large as a filbert, which was rich in gold and
silver—and this was reserved for a fire-assay! Of course the fire-assay
would demonstrate that a ton of such rock would yield hundreds of dollars
—and on such assays many an utterly worthless mine was sold.
Assaying was a good business, and so some men engaged in it,
occasionally, who were not strictly scientific and capable. One assayer got
such rich results out of all specimens brought to him that in time he
acquired almost a monopoly of the business. But like all men who achieve
success, he became an object of envy and suspicion. The other assayers
entered into a conspiracy against him, and let some prominent citizens into
the secret in order to show that they meant fairly. Then they broke a little
fragment off a carpenter’s grindstone and got a stranger to take it to the
popular scientist and get it assayed. In the course of an hour the result came
—whereby it appeared that a ton of that rock would yield $1,184.40 in
silver and $366.36 in gold!

Due publication of the whole matter was made in the paper, and the
popular assayer left town “between two days.”
I will remark, in passing, that I only remained in the milling business one
week. I told my employer I could not stay longer without an advance in my
wages; that I liked quartz milling, indeed was infatuated with it; that I had
never before grown so tenderly attached to an occupation in so short a time;
that nothing, it seemed to me, gave such scope to intellectual activity as
feeding a battery and screening tailings, and nothing so stimulated the
moral attributes as retorting bullion and washing blankets—still, I felt
constrained to ask an increase of salary. He said he was paying me ten
dollars a week, and thought it a good round sum. How much did I want?
I said about four hundred thousand dollars a month, and board, was about
all I could reasonably ask, considering the hard times.
I was ordered off the premises! And yet, when I look back to those days
and call to mind the exceeding hardness of the labor I performed in that
mill, I only regret that I did not ask him seven hundred thousand.

Shortly after this I began to grow crazy, along with the rest of the
population, about the mysterious and wonderful “cement mine,” and to
make preparations to take advantage of any opportunity that might offer to
go and help hunt for it.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

It was somewhere in the neighborhood of Mono Lake that the marvellous
Whiteman cement mine was supposed to lie. Every now and then it would
be reported that Mr. W. had passed stealthily through Esmeralda at dead of
night, in disguise, and then we would have a wild excitement—because he
must be steering for his secret mine, and now was the time to follow him. In
less than three hours after daylight all the horses and mules and donkeys in
the vicinity would be bought, hired or stolen, and half the community
would be off for the mountains, following in the wake of Whiteman. But W.
would drift about through the mountain gorges for days together, in a
purposeless sort of way, until the provisions of the miners ran out, and they
would have to go back home. I have known it reported at eleven at night, in
a large mining camp, that Whiteman had just passed through, and in two
hours the streets, so quiet before, would be swarming with men and
animals. Every individual would be trying to be very secret, but yet
venturing to whisper to just one neighbor that W. had passed through. And
long before daylight—this in the dead of Winter—the stampede would be
complete, the camp deserted, and the whole population gone chasing after
W.
The tradition was that in the early immigration, more than twenty years
ago, three young Germans, brothers, who had survived an Indian massacre
on the Plains, wandered on foot through the deserts, avoiding all trails and
roads, and simply holding a westerly direction and hoping to find California
before they starved, or died of fatigue. And in a gorge in the mountains they
sat down to rest one day, when one of them noticed a curious vein of
cement running along the ground, shot full of lumps of dull yellow metal.
They saw that it was gold, and that here was a fortune to be acquired in a
single day. The vein was about as wide as a curbstone, and fully two thirds

of it was pure gold. Every pound of the wonderful cement was worth well-
nigh $200.

Each of the brothers loaded himself with about twenty-five pounds of it,
and then they covered up all traces of the vein, made a rude drawing of the

locality and the principal landmarks in the vicinity, and started westward
again. But troubles thickened about them. In their wanderings one brother
fell and broke his leg, and the others were obliged to go on and leave him to
die in the wilderness. Another, worn out and starving, gave up by and by,
and laid down to die, but after two or three weeks of incredible hardships,
the third reached the settlements of California exhausted, sick, and his mind
deranged by his sufferings. He had thrown away all his cement but a few
fragments, but these were sufficient to set everybody wild with excitement.
However, he had had enough of the cement country, and nothing could
induce him to lead a party thither. He was entirely content to work on a
farm for wages. But he gave Whiteman his map, and described the cement
region as well as he could and thus transferred the curse to that gentleman
—for when I had my one accidental glimpse of Mr. W. in Esmeralda he had
been hunting for the lost mine, in hunger and thirst, poverty and sickness,
for twelve or thirteen years. Some people believed he had found it, but most
people believed he had not. I saw a piece of cement as large as my fist
which was said to have been given to Whiteman by the young German, and
it was of a seductive nature. Lumps of virgin gold were as thick in it as
raisins in a slice of fruit cake. The privilege of working such a mine one
week would be sufficient for a man of reasonable desires.
A new partner of ours, a Mr. Higbie, knew Whiteman well by sight, and a
friend of ours, a Mr. Van Dorn, was well acquainted with him, and not only
that, but had Whiteman’s promise that he should have a private hint in time
to enable him to join the next cement expedition. Van Dorn had promised to
extend the hint to us. One evening Higbie came in greatly excited, and said
he felt certain he had recognized Whiteman, up town, disguised and in a
pretended state of intoxication. In a little while Van Dorn arrived and
confirmed the news; and so we gathered in our cabin and with heads close
together arranged our plans in impressive whispers.
We were to leave town quietly, after midnight, in two or three small
parties, so as not to attract attention, and meet at dawn on the “divide”
overlooking Mono Lake, eight or nine miles distant. We were to make no
noise after starting, and not speak above a whisper under any
circumstances. It was believed that for once Whiteman’s presence was
unknown in the town and his expedition unsuspected. Our conclave broke
up at nine o’clock, and we set about our preparation diligently and with
profound secrecy. At eleven o’clock we saddled our horses, hitched them

with their long riatas (or lassos), and then brought out a side of bacon, a
sack of beans, a small sack of coffee, some sugar, a hundred pounds of flour
in sacks, some tin cups and a coffee pot, frying pan and some few other
necessary articles. All these things were “packed” on the back of a led horse
—and whoever has not been taught, by a Spanish adept, to pack an animal,
let him never hope to do the thing by natural smartness. That is impossible.
Higbie had had some experience, but was not perfect. He put on the pack
saddle (a thing like a saw-buck), piled the property on it and then wound a
rope all over and about it and under it, “every which way,” taking a hitch in
it every now and then, and occasionally surging back on it till the horse’s
sides sunk in and he gasped for breath—but every time the lashings grew
tight in one place they loosened in another. We never did get the load tight
all over, but we got it so that it would do, after a fashion, and then we
started, in single file, close order, and without a word. It was a dark night.
We kept the middle of the road, and proceeded in a slow walk past the rows
of cabins, and whenever a miner came to his door I trembled for fear the
light would shine on us and excite curiosity. But nothing happened. We
began the long winding ascent of the canyon, toward the “divide,” and
presently the cabins began to grow infrequent, and the intervals between
them wider and wider, and then I began to breathe tolerably freely and feel
less like a thief and a murderer. I was in the rear, leading the pack horse. As
the ascent grew steeper he grew proportionately less satisfied with his
cargo, and began to pull back on his riata occasionally and delay progress.
My comrades were passing out of sight in the gloom. I was getting anxious.
I coaxed and bullied the pack horse till I presently got him into a trot, and
then the tin cups and pans strung about his person frightened him and he
ran. His riata was wound around the pummel of my saddle, and so, as he
went by he dragged me from my horse and the two animals traveled briskly
on without me. But I was not alone—the loosened cargo tumbled overboard
from the pack horse and fell close to me. It was abreast of almost the last
cabin.
A miner came out and said:
“Hello!”
I was thirty steps from him, and knew he could not see me, it was so very
dark in the shadow of the mountain. So I lay still. Another head appeared in

the light of the cabin door, and presently the two men walked toward me.
They stopped within ten steps of me, and one said:
“St! Listen.”

I could not have been in a more distressed state if I had been escaping
justice with a price on my head. Then the miners appeared to sit down on a
boulder, though I could not see them distinctly enough to be very sure what
they did. One said:
“I heard a noise, as plain as I ever heard anything. It seemed to be about
there—”
A stone whizzed by my head. I flattened myself out in the dust like a
postage stamp, and thought to myself if he mended his aim ever so little he
would probably hear another noise. In my heart, now, I execrated secret
expeditions. I promised myself that this should be my last, though the
Sierras were ribbed with cement veins. Then one of the men said:
“I’ll tell you what! Welch knew what he was talking about when he said
he saw Whiteman to-day. I heard horses—that was the noise. I am going
down to Welch’s, right away.”
They left and I was glad. I did not care whither they went, so they went. I
was willing they should visit Welch, and the sooner the better.

As soon as they closed their cabin door my comrades emerged from the
gloom; they had caught the horses and were waiting for a clear coast again.
We remounted the cargo on the pack horse and got under way, and as day
broke we reached the “divide” and joined Van Dorn. Then we journeyed
down into the valley of the Lake, and feeling secure, we halted to cook
breakfast, for we were tired and sleepy and hungry. Three hours later the
rest of the population filed over the “divide” in a long procession, and
drifted off out of sight around the borders of the Lake!
Whether or not my accident had produced this result we never knew, but
at least one thing was certain—the secret was out and Whiteman would not
enter upon a search for the cement mine this time. We were filled with
chagrin.
We held a council and decided to make the best of our misfortune and
enjoy a week’s holiday on the borders of the curious Lake. Mono, it is
sometimes called, and sometimes the “Dead Sea of California.” It is one of
the strangest freaks of Nature to be found in any land, but it is hardly ever
mentioned in print and very seldom visited, because it lies away off the
usual routes of travel and besides is so difficult to get at that only men
content to endure the roughest life will consent to take upon themselves the
discomforts of such a trip. On the morning of our second day, we traveled
around to a remote and particularly wild spot on the borders of the Lake,
where a stream of fresh, ice-cold water entered it from the mountain side,
and then we went regularly into camp. We hired a large boat and two shot-
guns from a lonely ranchman who lived some ten miles further on, and
made ready for comfort and recreation. We soon got thoroughly acquainted
with the Lake and all its peculiarities.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Mono Lake lies in a lifeless, treeless, hideous desert, eight thousand feet
above the level of the sea, and is guarded by mountains two thousand feet
higher, whose summits are always clothed in clouds. This solemn, silent,
sailless sea—this lonely tenant of the loneliest spot on earth—is little
graced with the picturesque. It is an unpretending expanse of grayish water,
about a hundred miles in circumference, with two islands in its centre, mere
upheavals of rent and scorched and blistered lava, snowed over with gray
banks and drifts of pumice-stone and ashes, the winding sheet of the dead
volcano, whose vast crater the lake has seized upon and occupied.

The lake is two hundred feet deep, and its sluggish waters are so strong
with alkali that if you only dip the most hopelessly soiled garment into them
once or twice, and wring it out, it will be found as clean as if it had been
through the ablest of washerwomen’s hands. While we camped there our
laundry work was easy. We tied the week’s washing astern of our boat, and

sailed a quarter of a mile, and the job was complete, all to the wringing out.
If we threw the water on our heads and gave them a rub or so, the white
lather would pile up three inches high. This water is not good for bruised
places and abrasions of the skin. We had a valuable dog. He had raw places
on him. He had more raw places on him than sound ones. He was the rawest
dog I almost ever saw. He jumped overboard one day to get away from the
flies. But it was bad judgment. In his condition, it would have been just as
comfortable to jump into the fire.

The alkali water nipped him in all the raw places simultaneously, and he
struck out for the shore with considerable interest. He yelped and barked
and howled as he went—and by the time he got to the shore there was no
bark to him—for he had barked the bark all out of his inside, and the alkali
water had cleaned the bark all off his outside, and he probably wished he
had never embarked in any such enterprise. He ran round and round in a
circle, and pawed the earth and clawed the air, and threw double
somersaults, sometimes backward and sometimes forward, in the most
extraordinary manner. He was not a demonstrative dog, as a general thing,
but rather of a grave and serious turn of mind, and I never saw him take so

much interest in anything before. He finally struck out over the mountains,
at a gait which we estimated at about two hundred and fifty miles an hour,
and he is going yet. This was about nine years ago. We look for what is left
of him along here every day.

A white man cannot drink the water of Mono Lake, for it is nearly pure
lye. It is said that the Indians in the vicinity drink it sometimes, though. It is
not improbable, for they are among the purest liars I ever saw. [There will
be no additional charge for this joke, except to parties requiring an
explanation of it. This joke has received high commendation from some of
the ablest minds of the age.]
There are no fish in Mono Lake—no frogs, no snakes, no polliwigs—
nothing, in fact, that goes to make life desirable. Millions of wild ducks and
sea-gulls swim about the surface, but no living thing exists under the
surface, except a white feathery sort of worm, one half an inch long, which
looks like a bit of white thread frayed out at the sides. If you dip up a gallon
of water, you will get about fifteen thousand of these. They give to the
water a sort of grayish-white appearance. Then there is a fly, which looks
something like our house fly. These settle on the beach to eat the worms
that wash ashore—and any time, you can see there a belt of flies an inch
deep and six feet wide, and this belt extends clear around the lake—a belt of
flies one hundred miles long. If you throw a stone among them, they swarm
up so thick that they look dense, like a cloud. You can hold them under

water as long as you please—they do not mind it—they are only proud of it.
When you let them go, they pop up to the surface as dry as a patent office
report, and walk off as unconcernedly as if they had been educated
especially with a view to affording instructive entertainment to man in that
particular way. Providence leaves nothing to go by chance. All things have
their uses and their part and proper place in Nature’s economy: the ducks
eat the flies—the flies eat the worms—the Indians eat all three—the wild
cats eat the Indians—the white folks eat the wild cats—and thus all things
are lovely.
Mono Lake is a hundred miles in a straight line from the ocean—and
between it and the ocean are one or two ranges of mountains—yet
thousands of sea-gulls go there every season to lay their eggs and rear their
young. One would as soon expect to find sea-gulls in Kansas. And in this
connection let us observe another instance of Nature’s wisdom. The islands
in the lake being merely huge masses of lava, coated over with ashes and
pumice-stone, and utterly innocent of vegetation or anything that would
burn; and sea-gull’s eggs being entirely useless to anybody unless they be
cooked, Nature has provided an unfailing spring of boiling water on the
largest island, and you can put your eggs in there, and in four minutes you
can boil them as hard as any statement I have made during the past fifteen
years. Within ten feet of the boiling spring is a spring of pure cold water,
sweet and wholesome.
So, in that island you get your board and washing free of charge—and if
nature had gone further and furnished a nice American hotel clerk who was
crusty and disobliging, and didn’t know anything about the time tables, or
the railroad routes—or—anything—and was proud of it—I would not wish
for a more desirable boarding-house.

Half a dozen little mountain brooks flow into Mono Lake, but not a
stream of any kind flows out of it. It neither rises nor falls, apparently, and
what it does with its surplus water is a dark and bloody mystery.
There are only two seasons in the region round about Mono Lake—and
these are, the breaking up of one Winter and the beginning of the next.
More than once (in Esmeralda) I have seen a perfectly blistering morning
open up with the thermometer at ninety degrees at eight o’clock, and seen
the snow fall fourteen inches deep and that same identical thermometer go
down to forty-four degrees under shelter, before nine o’clock at night.
Under favorable circumstances it snows at least once in every single month
in the year, in the little town of Mono. So uncertain is the climate in
Summer that a lady who goes out visiting cannot hope to be prepared for all
emergencies unless she takes her fan under one arm and her snow shoes
under the other. When they have a Fourth of July procession it generally
snows on them, and they do say that as a general thing when a man calls for
a brandy toddy there, the bar keeper chops it off with a hatchet and wraps it
up in a paper, like maple sugar. And it is further reported that the old
soakers haven’t any teeth—wore them out eating gin cocktails and brandy
punches. I do not endorse that statement—I simply give it for what it is
worth—and it is worth—well, I should say, millions, to any man who can
believe it without straining himself. But I do endorse the snow on the
Fourth of July—because I know that to be true.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

About seven o’clock one blistering hot morning—for it was now dead
summer time—Higbie and I took the boat and started on a voyage of
discovery to the two islands. We had often longed to do this, but had been
deterred by the fear of storms; for they were frequent, and severe enough to
capsize an ordinary row-boat like ours without great difficulty—and once
capsized, death would ensue in spite of the bravest swimming, for that
venomous water would eat a man’s eyes out like fire, and burn him out
inside, too, if he shipped a sea. It was called twelve miles, straight out to the
islands—a long pull and a warm one—but the morning was so quiet and
sunny, and the lake so smooth and glassy and dead, that we could not resist
the temptation. So we filled two large tin canteens with water (since we
were not acquainted with the locality of the spring said to exist on the large
island), and started. Higbie’s brawny muscles gave the boat good speed, but
by the time we reached our destination we judged that we had pulled nearer
fifteen miles than twelve.
We landed on the big island and went ashore. We tried the water in the
canteens, now, and found that the sun had spoiled it; it was so brackish that
we could not drink it; so we poured it out and began a search for the spring
—for thirst augments fast as soon as it is apparent that one has no means at
hand of quenching it. The island was a long, moderately high hill of ashes
—nothing but gray ashes and pumice-stone, in which we sunk to our knees
at every step—and all around the top was a forbidding wall of scorched and
blasted rocks. When we reached the top and got within the wall, we found
simply a shallow, far-reaching basin, carpeted with ashes, and here and
there a patch of fine sand. In places, picturesque jets of steam shot up out of
crevices, giving evidence that although this ancient crater had gone out of
active business, there was still some fire left in its furnaces. Close to one of
these jets of steam stood the only tree on the island—a small pine of most

graceful shape and most faultless symmetry; its color was a brilliant green,
for the steam drifted unceasingly through its branches and kept them always
moist. It contrasted strangely enough, did this vigorous and beautiful
outcast, with its dead and dismal surroundings. It was like a cheerful spirit
in a mourning household.

We hunted for the spring everywhere, traversing the full length of the
island (two or three miles), and crossing it twice—climbing ash-hills
patiently, and then sliding down the other side in a sitting posture, plowing
up smothering volumes of gray dust. But we found nothing but solitude,
ashes and a heart-breaking silence. Finally we noticed that the wind had
risen, and we forgot our thirst in a solicitude of greater importance; for, the
lake being quiet, we had not taken pains about securing the boat. We hurried
back to a point overlooking our landing place, and then—but mere words
cannot describe our dismay—the boat was gone! The chances were that
there was not another boat on the entire lake. The situation was not

comfortable—in truth, to speak plainly, it was frightful. We were prisoners
on a desolate island, in aggravating proximity to friends who were for the
present helpless to aid us; and what was still more uncomfortable was the
reflection that we had neither food nor water. But presently we sighted the
boat. It was drifting along, leisurely, about fifty yards from shore, tossing in
a foamy sea. It drifted, and continued to drift, but at the same safe distance
from land, and we walked along abreast it and waited for fortune to favor
us. At the end of an hour it approached a jutting cape, and Higbie ran ahead
and posted himself on the utmost verge and prepared for the assault. If we
failed there, there was no hope for us. It was driving gradually shoreward
all the time, now; but whether it was driving fast enough to make the
connection or not was the momentous question. When it got within thirty
steps of Higbie I was so excited that I fancied I could hear my own heart
beat. When, a little later, it dragged slowly along and seemed about to go
by, only one little yard out of reach, it seemed as if my heart stood still; and
when it was exactly abreast him and began to widen away, and he still
standing like a watching statue, I knew my heart did stop. But when he gave
a great spring, the next instant, and lit fairly in the stern, I discharged a war-
whoop that woke the solitudes!

But it dulled my enthusiasm, presently, when he told me he had not been
caring whether the boat came within jumping distance or not, so that it
passed within eight or ten yards of him, for he had made up his mind to shut

his eyes and mouth and swim that trifling distance. Imbecile that I was, I
had not thought of that. It was only a long swim that could be fatal.
The sea was running high and the storm increasing. It was growing late,
too—three or four in the afternoon. Whether to venture toward the mainland
or not, was a question of some moment. But we were so distressed by thirst
that we decide to try it, and so Higbie fell to work and I took the steering-
oar. When we had pulled a mile, laboriously, we were evidently in serious
peril, for the storm had greatly augmented; the billows ran very high and
were capped with foaming crests, the heavens were hung with black, and
the wind blew with great fury. We would have gone back, now, but we did
not dare to turn the boat around, because as soon as she got in the trough of
the sea she would upset, of course. Our only hope lay in keeping her head-
on to the seas. It was hard work to do this, she plunged so, and so beat and
belabored the billows with her rising and falling bows. Now and then one of
Higbie’s oars would trip on the top of a wave, and the other one would
snatch the boat half around in spite of my cumbersome steering apparatus.
We were drenched by the sprays constantly, and the boat occasionally
shipped water. By and by, powerful as my comrade was, his great exertions
began to tell on him, and he was anxious that I should change places with
him till he could rest a little. But I told him this was impossible; for if the
steering oar were dropped a moment while we changed, the boat would slue
around into the trough of the sea, capsize, and in less than five minutes we
would have a hundred gallons of soap-suds in us and be eaten up so quickly
that we could not even be present at our own inquest.
But things cannot last always. Just as the darkness shut down we came
booming into port, head on. Higbie dropped his oars to hurrah—I dropped
mine to help—the sea gave the boat a twist, and over she went!
The agony that alkali water inflicts on bruises, chafes and blistered
hands, is unspeakable, and nothing but greasing all over will modify it—but
we ate, drank and slept well, that night, notwithstanding.
In speaking of the peculiarities of Mono Lake, I ought to have mentioned
that at intervals all around its shores stand picturesque turret-looking
masses and clusters of a whitish, coarse-grained rock that resembles inferior
mortar dried hard; and if one breaks off fragments of this rock he will find
perfectly shaped and thoroughly petrified gulls’ eggs deeply imbedded in
the mass. How did they get there? I simply state the fact—for it is a fact—

and leave the geological reader to crack the nut at his leisure and solve the
problem after his own fashion.
At the end of a week we adjourned to the Sierras on a fishing excursion,
and spent several days in camp under snowy Castle Peak, and fished
successfully for trout in a bright, miniature lake whose surface was between
ten and eleven thousand feet above the level of the sea; cooling ourselves
during the hot August noons by sitting on snow banks ten feet deep, under
whose sheltering edges fine grass and dainty flowers flourished luxuriously;
and at night entertaining ourselves by almost freezing to death. Then we
returned to Mono Lake, and finding that the cement excitement was over
for the present, packed up and went back to Esmeralda. Mr. Ballou
reconnoitred awhile, and not liking the prospect, set out alone for
Humboldt.
About this time occurred a little incident which has always had a sort of
interest to me, from the fact that it came so near “instigating” my funeral.
At a time when an Indian attack had been expected, the citizens hid their
gunpowder where it would be safe and yet convenient to hand when
wanted. A neighbor of ours hid six cans of rifle powder in the bake-oven of
an old discarded cooking stove which stood on the open ground near a
frame out-house or shed, and from and after that day never thought of it
again. We hired a half-tamed Indian to do some washing for us, and he took
up quarters under the shed with his tub. The ancient stove reposed within
six feet of him, and before his face. Finally it occurred to him that hot water
would be better than cold, and he went out and fired up under that forgotten
powder magazine and set on a kettle of water. Then he returned to his tub.
I entered the shed presently and threw down some more clothes, and was
about to speak to him when the stove blew up with a prodigious crash, and
disappeared, leaving not a splinter behind. Fragments of it fell in the streets
full two hundred yards away. Nearly a third of the shed roof over our heads
was destroyed, and one of the stove lids, after cutting a small stanchion half
in two in front of the Indian, whizzed between us and drove partly through
the weather-boarding beyond. I was as white as a sheet and as weak as a
kitten and speechless. But the Indian betrayed no trepidation, no distress,
not even discomfort. He simply stopped washing, leaned forward and
surveyed the clean, blank ground a moment, and then remarked:

“Mph! Dam stove heap gone!”—and resumed his scrubbing as placidly
as if it were an entirely customary thing for a stove to do. I will explain, that
“heap” is “Injun-English” for “very much.” The reader will perceive the
exhaustive expressiveness of it in the present instance.

CHAPTER XL.

I now come to a curious episode—the most curious, I think, that had yet
accented my slothful, valueless, heedless career. Out of a hillside toward the
upper end of the town, projected a wall of reddish looking quartz-croppings,
the exposed comb of a silver-bearing ledge that extended deep down into
the earth, of course. It was owned by a company entitled the “Wide West.”
There was a shaft sixty or seventy feet deep on the under side of the
croppings, and everybody was acquainted with the rock that came from it—
and tolerably rich rock it was, too, but nothing extraordinary. I will remark
here, that although to the inexperienced stranger all the quartz of a
particular “district” looks about alike, an old resident of the camp can take a
glance at a mixed pile of rock, separate the fragments and tell you which
mine each came from, as easily as a confectioner can separate and classify
the various kinds and qualities of candy in a mixed heap of the article.
All at once the town was thrown into a state of extraordinary excitement.
In mining parlance the Wide West had “struck it rich!” Everybody went to
see the new developments, and for some days there was such a crowd of
people about the Wide West shaft that a stranger would have supposed there
was a mass meeting in session there. No other topic was discussed but the
rich strike, and nobody thought or dreamed about anything else. Every man
brought away a specimen, ground it up in a hand mortar, washed it out in
his horn spoon, and glared speechless upon the marvelous result. It was not
hard rock, but black, decomposed stuff which could be crumbled in the
hand like a baked potato, and when spread out on a paper exhibited a thick
sprinkling of gold and particles of “native” silver. Higbie brought a handful
to the cabin, and when he had washed it out his amazement was beyond
description. Wide West stock soared skywards. It was said that repeated
offers had been made for it at a thousand dollars a foot, and promptly
refused. We have all had the “blues”—the mere sky-blues—but mine were

indigo, now—because I did not own in the Wide West. The world seemed
hollow to me, and existence a grief. I lost my appetite, and ceased to take an
interest in anything. Still I had to stay, and listen to other people’s
rejoicings, because I had no money to get out of the camp with.
The Wide West company put a stop to the carrying away of “specimens,”
and well they might, for every handful of the ore was worth a sum of some
consequence. To show the exceeding value of the ore, I will remark that a
sixteen-hundred-pounds parcel of it was sold, just as it lay, at the mouth of
the shaft, at one dollar a pound; and the man who bought it “packed” it on
mules a hundred and fifty or two hundred miles, over the mountains, to San
Francisco, satisfied that it would yield at a rate that would richly
compensate him for his trouble. The Wide West people also commanded
their foreman to refuse any but their own operatives permission to enter the
mine at any time or for any purpose. I kept up my “blue” meditations and
Higbie kept up a deal of thinking, too, but of a different sort. He puzzled
over the “rock,” examined it with a glass, inspected it in different lights and
from different points of view, and after each experiment delivered himself,
in soliloquy, of one and the same unvarying opinion in the same unvarying
formula:
“It is not Wide West rock!”
He said once or twice that he meant to have a look into the Wide West
shaft if he got shot for it. I was wretched, and did not care whether he got a
look into it or not. He failed that day, and tried again at night; failed again;
got up at dawn and tried, and failed again. Then he lay in ambush in the
sage brush hour after hour, waiting for the two or three hands to adjourn to
the shade of a boulder for dinner; made a start once, but was premature—
one of the men came back for something; tried it again, but when almost at
the mouth of the shaft, another of the men rose up from behind the boulder
as if to reconnoitre, and he dropped on the ground and lay quiet; presently
he crawled on his hands and knees to the mouth of the shaft, gave a quick
glance around, then seized the rope and slid down the shaft.

He disappeared in the gloom of a “side drift” just as a head appeared in
the mouth of the shaft and somebody shouted “Hello!”—which he did not
answer. He was not disturbed any more. An hour later he entered the cabin,
hot, red, and ready to burst with smothered excitement, and exclaimed in a
stage whisper:
“I knew it! We are rich! IT’S A BLIND LEAD!”

I thought the very earth reeled under me. Doubt—conviction—doubt
again—exultation—hope, amazement, belief, unbelief—every emotion
imaginable swept in wild procession through my heart and brain, and I
could not speak a word. After a moment or two of this mental fury, I shook
myself to rights, and said:
“Say it again!”
“It’s blind lead!”
“Cal. let’s—let’s burn the house—or kill somebody! Let’s get out where
there’s room to hurrah! But what is the use? It is a hundred times too good
to be true.”
“It’s a blind lead, for a million!—hanging wall—foot wall—clay casings
—everything complete!” He swung his hat and gave three cheers, and I cast
doubt to the winds and chimed in with a will. For I was worth a million
dollars, and did not care “whether school kept or not!”

But perhaps I ought to explain. A “blind lead” is a lead or ledge that does
not “crop out” above the surface. A miner does not know where to look for
such leads, but they are often stumbled upon by accident in the course of
driving a tunnel or sinking a shaft. Higbie knew the Wide West rock
perfectly well, and the more he had examined the new developments the
more he was satisfied that the ore could not have come from the Wide West
vein. And so had it occurred to him alone, of all the camp, that there was a
blind lead down in the shaft, and that even the Wide West people
themselves did not suspect it. He was right. When he went down the shaft,
he found that the blind lead held its independent way through the Wide
West vein, cutting it diagonally, and that it was enclosed in its own well-
defined casing-rocks and clay. Hence it was public property. Both leads
being perfectly well defined, it was easy for any miner to see which one
belonged to the Wide West and which did not.
We thought it well to have a strong friend, and therefore we brought the
foreman of the Wide West to our cabin that night and revealed the great
surprise to him. Higbie said:
“We are going to take possession of this blind lead, record it and establish
ownership, and then forbid the Wide West company to take out any more of
the rock. You cannot help your company in this matter—nobody can help
them. I will go into the shaft with you and prove to your entire satisfaction
that it is a blind lead. Now we propose to take you in with us, and claim the
blind lead in our three names. What do you say?”
What could a man say who had an opportunity to simply stretch forth his
hand and take possession of a fortune without risk of any kind and without
wronging any one or attaching the least taint of dishonor to his name? He
could only say, “Agreed.”
The notice was put up that night, and duly spread upon the recorder’s
books before ten o’clock. We claimed two hundred feet each—six hundred
feet in all—the smallest and compactest organization in the district, and the
easiest to manage.
No one can be so thoughtless as to suppose that we slept, that night.
Higbie and I went to bed at midnight, but it was only to lie broad awake and
think, dream, scheme. The floorless, tumble-down cabin was a palace, the
ragged gray blankets silk, the furniture rosewood and mahogany. Each new
splendor that burst out of my visions of the future whirled me bodily over in

bed or jerked me to a sitting posture just as if an electric battery had been
applied to me. We shot fragments of conversation back and forth at each
other. Once Higbie said:
“When are you going home—to the States?”
“To-morrow!”—with an evolution or two, ending with a sitting position.
“Well—no—but next month, at furthest.”
“We’ll go in the same steamer.”
“Agreed.”
A pause.
“Steamer of the 10th?”
“Yes. No, the 1st.”
“All right.”
Another pause.
“Where are you going to live?” said Higbie.
“San Francisco.”
“That’s me!”
Pause.
“Too high—too much climbing”—from Higbie.
“What is?”
“I was thinking of Russian Hill—building a house up there.”
“Too much climbing? Shan’t you keep a carriage?”
“Of course. I forgot that.”
Pause.

“Cal., what kind of a house are you going to build?”
“I was thinking about that. Three-story and an attic.”
“But what kind?”
“Well, I don’t hardly know. Brick, I suppose.”
“Brick—bosh.”
“Why? What is your idea?”
“Brown stone front—French plate glass—billiard-room off the dining-
room—statuary and paintings—shrubbery and two-acre grass plat—
greenhouse—iron dog on the front stoop—gray horses—landau, and a
coachman with a bug on his hat!”
“By George!”
A long pause.
“Cal., when are you going to Europe?”
“Well—I hadn’t thought of that. When are you?”
“In the Spring.”
“Going to be gone all summer?”
“All summer! I shall remain there three years.”
“No—but are you in earnest?”
“Indeed I am.”
“I will go along too.”
“Why of course you will.”

“What part of Europe shall you go to?”
“All parts. France, England, Germany—Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Syria,
Greece, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, Egypt—all over—everywhere.”
“I’m agreed.”
“All right.”
“Won’t it be a swell trip!”
“We’ll spend forty or fifty thousand dollars trying to make it one,
anyway.”
Another long pause.
“Higbie, we owe the butcher six dollars, and he has been threatening to
stop our—”
“Hang the butcher!”
“Amen.”
And so it went on. By three o’clock we found it was no use, and so we
got up and played cribbage and smoked pipes till sunrise. It was my week to
cook. I always hated cooking—now, I abhorred it.
The news was all over town. The former excitement was great—this one
was greater still. I walked the streets serene and happy. Higbie said the
foreman had been offered two hundred thousand dollars for his third of the
mine. I said I would like to see myself selling for any such price. My ideas
were lofty. My figure was a million. Still, I honestly believe that if I had
been offered it, it would have had no other effect than to make me hold off
for more.
I found abundant enjoyment in being rich. A man offered me a three-
hundred-dollar horse, and wanted to take my simple, unendorsed note for it.
That brought the most realizing sense I had yet had that I was actually rich,
beyond shadow of doubt. It was followed by numerous other evidences of a
similar nature—among which I may mention the fact of the butcher leaving
us a double supply of meat and saying nothing about money.
By the laws of the district, the “locators” or claimants of a ledge were
obliged to do a fair and reasonable amount of work on their new property
within ten days after the date of the location, or the property was forfeited,
and anybody could go and seize it that chose. So we determined to go to
work the next day. About the middle of the afternoon, as I was coming out

of the post office, I met a Mr. Gardiner, who told me that Capt. John Nye
was lying dangerously ill at his place (the “Nine-Mile Ranch”), and that he
and his wife were not able to give him nearly as much care and attention as
his case demanded. I said if he would wait for me a moment, I would go
down and help in the sick room. I ran to the cabin to tell Higbie. He was not
there, but I left a note on the table for him, and a few minutes later I left
town in Gardiner’s wagon.

CHAPTER XLI.

Captain Nye was very ill indeed, with spasmodic rheumatism. But the old
gentleman was himself—which is to say, he was kind-hearted and agreeable
when comfortable, but a singularly violent wild-cat when things did not go
well. He would be smiling along pleasantly enough, when a sudden spasm
of his disease would take him and he would go out of his smile into a
perfect fury. He would groan and wail and howl with the anguish, and fill
up the odd chinks with the most elaborate profanity that strong convictions
and a fine fancy could contrive. With fair opportunity he could swear very
well and handle his adjectives with considerable judgment; but when the
spasm was on him it was painful to listen to him, he was so awkward.
However, I had seen him nurse a sick man himself and put up patiently with
the inconveniences of the situation, and consequently I was willing that he
should have full license now that his own turn had come. He could not
disturb me, with all his raving and ranting, for my mind had work on hand,
and it labored on diligently, night and day, whether my hands were idle or
employed. I was altering and amending the plans for my house, and
thinking over the propriety of having the billard-room in the attic, instead of
on the same floor with the dining-room; also, I was trying to decide
between green and blue for the upholstery of the drawing-room, for,
although my preference was blue I feared it was a color that would be too
easily damaged by dust and sunlight; likewise while I was content to put the
coachman in a modest livery, I was uncertain about a footman—I needed
one, and was even resolved to have one, but wished he could properly
appear and perform his functions out of livery, for I somewhat dreaded so
much show; and yet, inasmuch as my late grandfather had had a coachman
and such things, but no liveries, I felt rather drawn to beat him;—or beat his
ghost, at any rate; I was also systematizing the European trip, and managed
to get it all laid out, as to route and length of time to be devoted to it—
everything, with one exception—namely, whether to cross the desert from

Cairo to Jerusalem per camel, or go by sea to Beirut, and thence down
through the country per caravan. Meantime I was writing to the friends at
home every day, instructing them concerning all my plans and intentions,
and directing them to look up a handsome homestead for my mother and
agree upon a price for it against my coming, and also directing them to sell
my share of the Tennessee land and tender the proceeds to the widows’ and
orphans’ fund of the typographical union of which I had long been a
member in good standing. [This Tennessee land had been in the possession
of the family many years, and promised to confer high fortune upon us
some day; it still promises it, but in a less violent way.]

When I had been nursing the Captain nine days he was somewhat better,
but very feeble. During the afternoon we lifted him into a chair and gave
him an alcoholic vapor bath, and then set about putting him on the bed
again. We had to be exceedingly careful, for the least jar produced pain.
Gardiner had his shoulders and I his legs; in an unfortunate moment I
stumbled and the patient fell heavily on the bed in an agony of torture. I
never heard a man swear so in my life. He raved like a maniac, and tried to
snatch a revolver from the table—but I got it. He ordered me out of the
house, and swore a world of oaths that he would kill me wherever he caught
me when he got on his feet again. It was simply a passing fury, and meant

nothing. I knew he would forget it in an hour, and maybe be sorry for it,
too; but it angered me a little, at the moment. So much so, indeed, that I
determined to go back to Esmeralda. I thought he was able to get along
alone, now, since he was on the war path. I took supper, and as soon as the
moon rose, began my nine-mile journey, on foot.
Even millionaires needed no horses, in those days, for a mere nine-mile
jaunt without baggage.
As I “raised the hill” overlooking the town, it lacked fifteen minutes of
twelve. I glanced at the hill over beyond the canyon, and in the bright
moonlight saw what appeared to be about half the population of the village
massed on and around the Wide West croppings. My heart gave an exulting
bound, and I said to myself, “They have made a new strike to-night—and
struck it richer than ever, no doubt.” I started over there, but gave it up. I
said the “strick” would keep, and I had climbed hill enough for one night. I
went on down through the town, and as I was passing a little German
bakery, a woman ran out and begged me to come in and help her. She said
her husband had a fit. I went in, and judged she was right—he appeared to
have a hundred of them, compressed into one. Two Germans were there,
trying to hold him, and not making much of a success of it. I ran up the
street half a block or so and routed out a sleeping doctor, brought him down
half dressed, and we four wrestled with the maniac, and doctored, drenched
and bled him, for more than an hour, and the poor German woman did the
crying. He grew quiet, now, and the doctor and I withdrew and left him to
his friends.
It was a little after one o’clock. As I entered the cabin door, tired but
jolly, the dingy light of a tallow candle revealed Higbie, sitting by the pine
table gazing stupidly at my note, which he held in his fingers, and looking
pale, old, and haggard. I halted, and looked at him. He looked at me,
stolidly. I said:
“Higbie, what—what is it?”
“We’re ruined—we didn’t do the work—THE BLIND LEAD’S
RELOCATED!”

It was enough. I sat down sick, grieved—broken-hearted, indeed. A
minute before, I was rich and brimful of vanity; I was a pauper now, and
very meek. We sat still an hour, busy with thought, busy with vain and
useless self-upbraidings, busy with “Why didn’t I do this, and why didn’t I
do that,” but neither spoke a word. Then we dropped into mutual
explanations, and the mystery was cleared away. It came out that Higbie
had depended on me, as I had on him, and as both of us had on the foreman.
The folly of it! It was the first time that ever staid and steadfast Higbie had
left an important matter to chance or failed to be true to his full share of a
responsibility.
But he had never seen my note till this moment, and this moment was the
first time he had been in the cabin since the day he had seen me last. He,
also, had left a note for me, on that same fatal afternoon—had ridden up on
horseback, and looked through the window, and being in a hurry and not
seeing me, had tossed the note into the cabin through a broken pane. Here it
was, on the floor, where it had remained undisturbed for nine days:

“Don’t fail to do the work before the ten days expire. W. has passed
through and given me notice. I am to join him at Mono Lake, and we shall
go on from there to-night. He says he will find it this time, sure. CAL.”
“W.” meant Whiteman, of course. That thrice accursed “cement!”
That was the way of it. An old miner, like Higbie, could no more
withstand the fascination of a mysterious mining excitement like this
“cement” foolishness, than he could refrain from eating when he was
famishing. Higbie had been dreaming about the marvelous cement for
months; and now, against his better judgment, he had gone off and “taken
the chances” on my keeping secure a mine worth a million undiscovered
cement veins. They had not been followed this time. His riding out of town
in broad daylight was such a common-place thing to do that it had not
attracted any attention. He said they prosecuted their search in the
fastnesses of the mountains during nine days, without success; they could
not find the cement. Then a ghastly fear came over him that something
might have happened to prevent the doing of the necessary work to hold the
blind lead (though indeed he thought such a thing hardly possible), and
forthwith he started home with all speed. He would have reached Esmeralda
in time, but his horse broke down and he had to walk a great part of the
distance. And so it happened that as he came into Esmeralda by one road, I
entered it by another. His was the superior energy, however, for he went
straight to the Wide West, instead of turning aside as I had done—and he
arrived there about five or ten minutes too late! The “notice” was already
up, the “relocation” of our mine completed beyond recall, and the crowd
rapidly dispersing. He learned some facts before he left the ground. The
foreman had not been seen about the streets since the night we had located
the mine—a telegram had called him to California on a matter of life and
death, it was said. At any rate he had done no work and the watchful eyes of
the community were taking note of the fact. At midnight of this woful tenth
day, the ledge would be “relocatable,” and by eleven o’clock the hill was
black with men prepared to do the relocating. That was the crowd I had
seen when I fancied a new “strike” had been made—idiot that I was.

[We three had the same right to relocate the lead that other people had,
provided we were quick enough.] As midnight was announced, fourteen
men, duly armed and ready to back their proceedings, put up their “notice”
and proclaimed their ownership of the blind lead, under the new name of
the “Johnson.” But A. D. Allen our partner (the foreman) put in a sudden
appearance about that time, with a cocked revolver in his hand, and said his
name must be added to the list, or he would “thin out the Johnson company
some.” He was a manly, splendid, determined fellow, and known to be as
good as his word, and therefore a compromise was effected. They put in his
name for a hundred feet, reserving to themselves the customary two
hundred feet each. Such was the history of the night’s events, as Higbie
gathered from a friend on the way home.
Higbie and I cleared out on a new mining excitement the next morning,
glad to get away from the scene of our sufferings, and after a month or two
of hardship and disappointment, returned to Esmeralda once more. Then we
learned that the Wide West and the Johnson companies had consolidated;
that the stock, thus united, comprised five thousand feet, or shares; that the
foreman, apprehending tiresome litigation, and considering such a huge

concern unwieldy, had sold his hundred feet for ninety thousand dollars in
gold and gone home to the States to enjoy it. If the stock was worth such a
gallant figure, with five thousand shares in the corporation, it makes me
dizzy to think what it would have been worth with only our original six
hundred in it. It was the difference between six hundred men owning a
house and five thousand owning it. We would have been millionaires if we
had only worked with pick and spade one little day on our property and so
secured our ownership!
It reads like a wild fancy sketch, but the evidence of many witnesses, and
likewise that of the official records of Esmeralda District, is easily
obtainable in proof that it is a true history. I can always have it to say that I
was absolutely and unquestionably worth a million dollars, once, for ten
days.
A year ago my esteemed and in every way estimable old millionaire
partner, Higbie, wrote me from an obscure little mining camp in California
that after nine or ten years of buffetings and hard striving, he was at last in a
position where he could command twenty-five hundred dollars, and said he
meant to go into the fruit business in a modest way. How such a thought
would have insulted him the night we lay in our cabin planning European
trips and brown stone houses on Russian Hill!

CHAPTER XLII.

What to do next?
It was a momentous question. I had gone out into the world to shift for
myself, at the age of thirteen (for my father had endorsed for friends; and
although he left us a sumptuous legacy of pride in his fine Virginian stock
and its national distinction, I presently found that I could not live on that
alone without occasional bread to wash it down with). I had gained a
livelihood in various vocations, but had not dazzled anybody with my
successes; still the list was before me, and the amplest liberty in the matter
of choosing, provided I wanted to work—which I did not, after being so
wealthy. I had once been a grocery clerk, for one day, but had consumed so
much sugar in that time that I was relieved from further duty by the
proprietor; said he wanted me outside, so that he could have my custom. I
had studied law an entire week, and then given it up because it was so prosy
and tiresome. I had engaged briefly in the study of blacksmithing, but
wasted so much time trying to fix the bellows so that it would blow itself,
that the master turned me adrift in disgrace, and told me I would come to no
good. I had been a bookseller’s clerk for awhile, but the customers bothered
me so much I could not read with any comfort, and so the proprietor gave
me a furlough and forgot to put a limit to it. I had clerked in a drug store
part of a summer, but my prescriptions were unlucky, and we appeared to
sell more stomach pumps than soda water. So I had to go.