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diff --git a/8582-h/8582-h.htm b/8582-h/8582-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87ff72a --- /dev/null +++ b/8582-h/8582-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3010 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>Roughing It, Part 1</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>ROUGHING IT, By Mark Twain, Part 1 </h2> +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Roughing It, Part 1., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Roughing It, Part 1. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 2, 2004 [EBook #8582] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 1. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<br> +<hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + +<center><img alt="cover.jpg (90K)" src="images/cover.jpg" height="1071" width="733"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="spine.jpg (54K)" src="images/spine.jpg" height="1071" width="307"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<h1>ROUGHING IT, Part. 1</h1> +<br><br> +<h2>By Mark Twain</h2> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="frontispiece1.jpg (168K)" src="images/frontispiece1.jpg" height="643" width="903"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="frontispiece2"></a> +<center><img alt="frontispiece2.jpg (184K)" src="images/frontispiece2.jpg" height="1020" width="600"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="titlepage.jpg (95K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" height="1064" width="705"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="dedication.jpg (18K)" src="images/dedication.jpg" height="273" width="425"></center> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>PREFATORY.</h2> </center> +<br> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>CONTENTS.</h2></center> +<br> + + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p><a href="#ch01">CHAPTER I.</a> 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</p> + +<p><a href="#ch02">CHAPTER II.</a> 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</p> + +<p><a href="#ch03">CHAPTER III.</a> "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</p> + +<p><a href="#ch04">CHAPTER IV.</a> 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</p> + +<p><a href="#ch05">CHAPTER V.</a> New Acquaintances—The Cayote—A Dog's +Experiences—A Disgusted Dog—The Relatives of the Cayote—Meals +Taken Away from Home</p> + +<p><a href="#ch06">CHAPTER VI.</a> 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</p> + +<p><a href="#ch07">CHAPTER VII.</a> 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</p> + +<p><a href="#ch08">CHAPTER VIII.</a> The Pony Express—Fifty Miles Without +Stopping—"Here he Comes"—Alkali Water—Riding an +Avalanche—Indian Massacre</p> + +<p><a href="#ch09">CHAPTER IX.</a> Among the Indians—An Unfair Advantage—Laying on +our Arms—A Midnight Murder—Wrath of Outlaws—A Dangerous, yet +Valuable Citizen</p> + +<p><a href="#ch10">CHAPTER X.</a> 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</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2></center> +<br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + +1. <a href="#frontispiece2">THE MINERS' DREAM</a><br> +2. <a href="#020">ENVIOUS CONTEMPLATIONS</a><br> +3. <a href="#021">INNOCENT DREAMS</a><br> +4. <a href="#023a">LIGHT TRAVELING ORDER</a><br> +5. <a href="#023b">THE "ALLEN"</a><br> +6. <a href="#024">INDUCEMENTS TO PURCHASE</a><br> +7. <a href="#025">THE FACETIOUS DRIVER</a><br> +8. <a href="#026">PLEASING NEWS</a><br> +9. <a href="#027">THE SPHYNX</a><br> +10. <a href="#032">MEDITATION</a><br> +11. <a href="#033a">ON BUSINESS</a><br> +12. <a href="#033b">AUTHOR AS GULLIVER</a><br> +13. <a href="#035">A TOUCH STATEMENT</a><br> +14. <a href="#038">THIRD TRIP OF THE UNABRIDGED</a><br> +15. <a href="#041">A POWERFUL GLASS</a><br> +16. <a href="#042a">AN HEIRLOOM</a><br> +17. <a href="#042b">OUR LANDLORD</a><br> +18. <a href="#043">DIGNIFIED EXILE</a><br> +19. <a href="#044">DRINKING SLUMGULLION</a><br> +20. <a href="#045">A JOKE WITHOUT CREAM</a><br> +21. <a href="#047">PULLMAN CAR DINING-SALOON</a><br> +22. <a href="#049">OUR MORNING RIDE</a><br> +23. <a href="#050">PRAIRIE DOGS</a><br> +24. <a href="#051">A CAYOTE</a><br> +25. <a href="#052">SHOWING RESPECT TO RELATIVES</a><br> +26. <a href="#055">THE CONDUCTOR</a><br> +27. <a href="#057">TEACHING A SUBORDINATE</a><br> +28. <a href="#058">JACK AND THE ELDERLY PILGRIM</a><br> +29. <a href="#061">CROSSING THE PLATTE</a><br> +30. <a href="#062">I BEGAN TO PRAY</a><br> +31. <a href="#063">A NEW DEPARTURE</a><br> +32. <a href="#065">SUSPENDED OPERATIONS</a><br> +33. <a href="#068">A WONDERFUL LIE</a><br> +34. <a href="#069">TALL PIECE</a><br> +35. <a href="#071">HERE HE COMES</a><br> +36. <a href="#072">CHANGING HORSES</a><br> +37. <a href="#073">RIDING THE AVALANCHE</a><br> +38. <a href="#076">INDIAN COUNTRY</a><br> +39. <a href="#081">A PROPOSED FIST FIGHT</a><br> +40. <a href="#082">FROM BEHIND THE DOOR</a><br> +41. <a href="#084">SLADE AS AN EXECUTIONER</a><br> +42. <a href="#085">AN UNPLEASANT VIEW</a><br> +43. <a href="#088">UNAPPRECIATED POLITENESS</a><br> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="ch01"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +</center> +<br> + +<p>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. +</p> +<a name="020"></a> +<br><br> +<center><img alt="020.jpg (69K)" src="images/020.jpg" height="500" width="481"></center> +<br><br> +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="021"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="021.jpg (82K)" src="images/021.jpg" height="525" width="585"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch02"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +</center> +<br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="023a"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="023a.jpg (31K)" src="images/023a.jpg" height="412" width="256"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="023b"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="023b.jpg (11K)" src="images/023b.jpg" height="199" width="263"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="024"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="024.jpg (96K)" src="images/024.jpg" height="531" width="570"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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." </p> + +<a name="026"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="026.jpg (65K)" src="images/026.jpg" height="470" width="431"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="025"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="025.jpg (32K)" src="images/025.jpg" height="345" width="328"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"The mosquitoes are pretty bad, about here, madam."</p> + +<p>"You bet!"</p> + +<p>"What did I understand you to say, madam?"</p> + +<p>"You BET!"</p> + +<a name="027"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="027.jpg (31K)" src="images/027.jpg" height="349" width="323"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>Then she cheered up, and faced around and said:</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>We resolved not to "lay by at Cottonwood."</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch03"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"By George, the thoroughbrace is broke!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"I never saw a thoroughbrace used up like that, before, that I +can remember. How did it happen?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="032"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="032.jpg (27K)" src="images/032.jpg" height="376" width="325"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="033a"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="033a.jpg (35K)" src="images/033a.jpg" height="300" width="439"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="033b"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="033b.jpg (30K)" src="images/033b.jpg" height="320" width="280"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +<a name="035"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="035.jpg (95K)" src="images/035.jpg" height="607" width="584"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch04"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="038"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="038.jpg (54K)" src="images/038.jpg" height="425" width="505"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 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.</p> + +<a name="041"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="041.jpg (47K)" src="images/041.jpg" height="497" width="308"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<a name="042a"></a> +<center> +<img alt="042a.jpg (11K)" src="images/042a.jpg" height="154" width="309"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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. +</p> + +<a name="042b"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="042b.jpg (42K)" src="images/042b.jpg" height="533" width="272"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="043"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="043.jpg (23K)" src="images/043.jpg" height="349" width="311"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then he poured for us a beverage which he called "Slum +gullion," 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.</p> + +<a name="044"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="044.jpg (64K)" src="images/044.jpg" height="500" width="475"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>He had no sugar and no milk—not even a spoon to stir the +ingredients with.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"All! Why, thunder and lightning, I should think there was +mackerel enough there for six."</p> + +<p>"But I don't like mackerel."</p> + +<p>"Oh—then help yourself to the mustard."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Our breakfast was before us, but our teeth were idle.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Coffee! Well, if that don't go clean ahead of me, I'm +d—-d!"</p> + +<a name="045"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="045.jpg (40K)" src="images/045.jpg" height="499" width="307"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>"ACROSS THE CONTINENT.</p> + +<p>"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?</p> + +<a name="047"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="047.jpg (88K)" src="images/047.jpg" height="506" width="597"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"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."</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br> +<a name="ch05"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>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!</p> + +<a name="049"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="049.jpg (43K)" src="images/049.jpg" height="409" width="389"> +</center> + +<a name="050"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="050.jpg (51K)" src="images/050.jpg" height="511" width="350"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="051"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="051.jpg (42K)" src="images/051.jpg" height="297" width="586"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<a name="052"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="052.jpg (145K)" src="images/052.jpg" height="863" width="630"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<br><br> +<a name="ch06"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="055"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="055.jpg (39K)" src="images/055.jpg" height="474" width="313"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<a name="057"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="057.jpg (53K)" src="images/057.jpg" height="410" width="476"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Moses who?" (falling inflection).</p> + +<a name="058"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="058.jpg (62K)" src="images/058.jpg" height="524" width="441"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Forty years? Only three hundred miles? Humph! Ben Holliday +would have fetched them through in thirty-six hours!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch07"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="061"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="061.jpg (69K)" src="images/061.jpg" height="210" width="650"> +</center> +<br><a href="images/061.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Full Size" src="images/enlarge.jpg"></a> +<br><br> + +<p>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:</p> + +<a name="062"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="062.jpg (81K)" src="images/062.jpg" height="529" width="599"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<a name="063"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="063.jpg (63K)" src="images/063.jpg" height="398" width="582"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with +you?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh—exactly."</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"What, the bull?"</p> + +<p>"Of course—who else?"</p> + +<p>"But a bull can't climb a tree."</p> + +<a name="065"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="065.jpg (75K)" src="images/065.jpg" height="741" width="404"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"He can't, can't he? Since you know so much about it, did you +ever see a bull try?"</p> + +<p>"No! I never dreamt of such a thing."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Well, all right—go on. What did you do?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it?"</p> + +<p>"I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if +it isn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, we can't refuse to believe it, and we don't. But if +there were some proofs——"</p> + +<p>"Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Did I bring back my horse?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see the bull again?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, what more do you want? I never saw anybody as +particular as you are about a little thing like that."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>A quick glance from Bascom—a glance that I +understood—then:</p> + +<p>"Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a thing. Man, it is +impossible."</p> + +<p>"I knew you would say it. I'll fetch the cat."</p> + +<p>He went in the house. Bascom said:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Cat eat a cocoanut—the innocent fool!"</p> + +<a name="068"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="068.jpg (84K)" src="images/068.jpg" height="473" width="548"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough.</p> + +<p>Bascom smiled. Said he:</p> + +<p>"I'll hold the cat—you bring a cocoanut."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Keep the horse till morning. And—you need not speak of +this—foolishness to the boys."</p> + + +<a name="069"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="069.jpg (50K)" src="images/069.jpg" height="386" width="491"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="ch08"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="071"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="071.jpg (120K)" src="images/071.jpg" height="773" width="610"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"HERE HE COMES!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<a name="072"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="072.jpg (33K)" src="images/072.jpg" height="289" width="411"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<a name="073"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="073.jpg (48K)" src="images/073.jpg" height="387" width="379"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch09"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 statement were not generally believed.</p> + +<a name="076"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="076.jpg (53K)" src="images/076.jpg" height="439" width="411"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>"Help! help! help!" [It was our driver's voice.]</p> + +<p>"Kill him! Kill him like a dog!"</p> + +<p>"I'm being murdered! Will no man lend me a pistol?"</p> + +<p>"Look out! head him off! head him off!"</p> + +<p>[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.]</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"I tell you it's as much as Slade himself want to do!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch10"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="081"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="081.jpg (55K)" src="images/081.jpg" height="596" width="387"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 plucky, and Jules got several bad +pistol wounds in return.</p> + +<a name="082"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="082.jpg (157K)" src="images/082.jpg" height="958" width="629"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>From a bloodthirstily interesting little Montana book.—["The +Vigilantes of Montana," by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale.]—I take this +paragraph:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>"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."</p> + +<a name="084"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="084.jpg (67K)" src="images/084.jpg" height="498" width="487"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The Vigilantes of Montana" by Prof. Thomas J. Dimsdale</p> + +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<a name="085"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="085.jpg (94K)" src="images/085.jpg" height="527" width="579"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="088"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="088.jpg (57K)" src="images/088.jpg" height="461" width="432"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<a name="089"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="089.jpg (31K)" src="images/089.jpg" height="261" width="538"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing It, Part 1. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 1. *** + +***** This file should be named 8582-h.htm or 8582-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/8/8582/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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