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diff --git a/8582.txt b/8582.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d41b4b --- /dev/null +++ b/8582.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2685 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 1. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + ROUGHING IT + + by Mark Twain + + 1880 + + Part 1. + + TO + CALVIN H. HIGBIE, + Of California, + an Honest Man, a Genial Comrade, and a Steadfast Friend. + THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED + By the Author, + In Memory of the Curious Time + When We Two + WERE MILLIONAIRES FOR TEN DAYS. + + + + + ROUGHING IT + + BY + MARK TWAIN. + (SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.) + + + + PREFATORY. + +This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history +or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of +variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting +reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad +him with science. Still, there is information in the volume; information +concerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about +which no books have been written by persons who were on the ground in +person, and saw the happenings of the time with their own eyes. I allude +to the rise, growth and culmination of the silver-mining fever in Nevada +-a curious episode, in some respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind, +that has occurred in the land; and the only one, indeed, that is likely +to occur in it. + +Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the +book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped: +information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar +of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would +give worlds if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk +up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, +I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not +justification. + +THE AUTHOR. + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER I. +My Brother appointed Secretary of Nevada--I Envy His Prospective +Adventures--Am Appointed Private Secretary Under Him--My Contentment +Complete--Packed in One Hour--Dreams and Visions--On the Missouri River +--A Bully Boat + +CHAPTER II. +Arrive at St. Joseph--Only Twenty-five Pounds Baggage Allowed--Farewell +to Kid Gloves and Dress Coats--Armed to the Teeth--The "Allen"--A +Cheerful Weapon--Persuaded to Buy a Mule--Schedule of Luxuries--We Leave +the "States"--"Our Coach"--Mails for the Indians--Between a Wink and an +Earthquake--A Modern Sphynx and How She Entertained Us--A Sociable Heifer + +CHAPTER III. +"The Thoroughbrace is Broke"--Mails Delivered Properly--Sleeping Under +Difficulties--A Jackass Rabbit Meditating, and on Business--A Modern +Gulliver--Sage-brush--Overcoats as an Article of Diet--Sad Fate of a +Camel--Warning to Experimenters + +CHAPTER IV. +Making Our Bed--Assaults by the Unabridged--At a Station--Our Driver a +Great and Shining Dignitary--Strange Place for a Frontyard +--Accommodations--Double Portraits--An Heirloom--Our Worthy Landlord +--"Fixings and Things"--An Exile--Slumgullion--A Well Furnished Table--The +Landlord Astonished--Table Etiquette--Wild Mexican Mules--Stage-coaching +and Railroading + +CHAPTER V. +New Acquaintances--The Cayote--A Dog's Experiences--A Disgusted Dog--The +Relatives of the Cayote--Meals Taken Away from Home + +CHAPTER VI. +The Division Superintendent--The Conductor--The Driver--One Hundred and +Fifty Miles' Drive Without Sleep--Teaching a Subordinate--Our Old Friend +Jack and a Pilgrim--Ben Holliday Compared to Moses + +CHAPTER VII. +Overland City--Crossing the Platte--Bemis's Buffalo Hunt--Assault by a +Buffalo--Bemis's Horse Goes Crazy--An Impromptu Circus--A New Departure +--Bemis Finds Refuge in a Tree--Escapes Finally by a Wonderful Method + +CHAPTER VIII. +The Pony Express--Fifty Miles Without Stopping--"Here he Comes"--Alkali +Water--Riding an Avalanche--Indian Massacre + +CHAPTER IX. +Among the Indians--An Unfair Advantage--Laying on our Arms--A Midnight +Murder--Wrath of Outlaws--A Dangerous, yet Valuable Citizen + +CHAPTER X. +History of Slade--A Proposed Fist-fight--Encounter with Jules--Paradise +of Outlaws--Slade as Superintendent--As Executioner--A Doomed Whisky +Seller--A Prisoner--A Wife's Bravery--An Ancient Enemy Captured--Enjoying +a Luxury--Hob-nobbing with Slade--Too Polite--A Happy Escape + +CHAPTER XI. +Slade in Montana--"On a Spree"--In Court--Attack on a Judge--Arrest by +the Vigilantes--Turn out of the Miners--Execution of Slade--Lamentations +of His Wife--Was Slade a Coward? + +CHAPTER XII. +A Mormon Emigrant Train--The Heart of the Rocky Mountains--Pure +Saleratus--A Natural Ice-House--An Entire Inhabitant--In Sight of +"Eternal Snow"--The South Pass--The Parting Streams--An Unreliable Letter +Carrier--Meeting of Old Friends--A Spoiled Watermelon--Down the +Mountain--A Scene of Desolation--Lost in the Dark--Unnecessary Advice +--U.S. Troops and Indians--Sublime Spectacle--Another Delusion Dispelled +--Among the Angels + +CHAPTER XIII. +Mormons and Gentiles--Exhilarating Drink, and its Effect on Bemis--Salt +Lake City--A Great Contrast--A Mormon Vagrant--Talk with a Saint--A Visit +to the "King"--A Happy Simile + +CHAPTER XIV. +Mormon Contractors--How Mr. Street Astonished Them--The Case Before +Brigham Young, and How he Disposed of it--Polygamy Viewed from a New +Position + +CHAPTER XV. +A Gentile Den--Polygamy Discussed--Favorite Wife and D. 4--Hennery for +Retired Wives--Children Need Marking--Cost of a Gift to No. 6 +--A Penny-whistle Gift and its Effects--Fathering the Foundlings +--It Resembled Him--The Family Bedstead + +CHAPTER XVI +The Mormon Bible--Proofs of its Divinity--Plagiarism of its Authors +--Story of Nephi--Wonderful Battle--Kilkenny Cats Outdone + +CHAPTER XVII. +Three Sides to all Questions--Everything "A Quarter"--Shriveled Up +--Emigrants and White Shirts at a Discount--"Forty-Niners"--Above Par--Real +Happiness + +CHAPTER XVIII. +Alkali Desert--Romance of Crossing Dispelled--Alkali Dust--Effect on the +Mules--Universal Thanksgiving + +CHAPTER XIX. +The Digger Indians Compared with the Bushmen of Africa--Food, Life and +Characteristics--Cowardly Attack on a Stage Coach--A Brave Driver--The +Noble Red Man + +CHAPTER XX. +The Great American Desert--Forty Miles on Bones--Lakes Without Outlets +--Greely's Remarkable Ride--Hank Monk, the Renowned Driver--Fatal Effects +of "Corking" a Story--Bald-Headed Anecdote + +CHAPTER XXI. +Alkali Dust--Desolation and Contemplation--Carson City--Our Journey +Ended--We are Introduced to Several Citizens--A Strange Rebuke--A Washoe +Zephyr at Play--Its Office Hours--Governor's Palace--Government Offices +--Our French Landlady Bridget O'Flannigan--Shadow Secrets--Cause for a +Disturbance at Once--The Irish Brigade--Mrs. O'Flannigan's Boarders--The +Surveying Expedition--Escape of the Tarantulas + +CHAPTER XXII. +The Son of a Nabob--Start for Lake Tahoe--Splendor of the Views--Trip on +the Lake--Camping Out--Reinvigorating Climate--Clearing a Tract of Land +--Securing a Title--Outhouse and Fences + +CHAPTER XXIII. +A Happy Life--Lake Tahoe and its Moods--Transparency of the Waters--A +Catastrophe--Fire! Fire!--A Magnificent Spectacle--Homeless Again--We +take to the Lake--A Storm--Return to Carson + +CHAPTER XXIV. +Resolve to Buy a Horse--Horsemanship in Carson--A Temptation--Advice +Given Me Freely--I Buy the Mexican Plug--My First Ride--A Good Bucker--I +Loan the Plug--Experience of Borrowers--Attempts to Sell--Expense of the +Experiment--A Stranger Taken In + +CHAPTER XXV. +The Mormons in Nevada--How to Persuade a Loan from Them--Early History of +the Territory--Silver Mines Discovered--The New Territorial Government--A +Foreign One and a Poor One--Its Funny Struggles for Existence--No Credit, +no Cash--Old Abe Currey Sustains it and its Officers--Instructions and +Vouchers--An Indian's Endorsement--Toll-Gates + +CHAPTER XXVI. +The Silver Fever--State of the Market--Silver Bricks--Tales Told--Off for +the Humboldt Mines + +CHAPTER XXVII. +Our manner of going--Incidents of the Trip--A Warm but Too Familiar a +Bedfellow--Mr. Ballou Objects--Sunshine amid Clouds--Safely Arrived + +CHAPTER XXVIII. +Arrive at the Mountains--Building Our Cabin--My First Prospecting Tour +--My First Gold Mine--Pockets Filled With Treasures--Filtering the News to +My Companions--The Bubble Pricked--All Not Gold That Glitters + +CHAPTER XXIX. +Out Prospecting--A Silver Mine At Last--Making a Fortune With Sledge and +Drill--A Hard Road to Travel--We Own in Claims--A Rocky Country + +CHAPTER XXX. +Disinterested Friends--How "Feet" Were Sold--We Quit Tunnelling--A Trip +to Esmeralda--My Companions--An Indian Prophesy--A Flood--Our Quarters +During It + +CHAPTER XXXI. +The Guests at "Honey Lake Smith's"--"Bully Old Arkansas"--"Our Landlord" +--Determined to Fight--The Landlord's Wife--The Bully Conquered by Her +--Another Start--Crossing the Carson--A Narrow Escape--Following Our Own +Track--A New Guide--Lost in the Snow + +CHAPTER XXXII. +Desperate Situation--Attempts to Make a Fire--Our Horses leave us--We +Find Matches--One, Two, Three and the Last--No Fire--Death Seems +Inevitable--We Mourn Over Our Evil Lives--Discarded Vices--We Forgive +Each Other--An Affectionate Farewell--The Sleep of Oblivion + +CHAPTER XXXIII. +Return of Consciousness--Ridiculous Developments--A Station House--Bitter +Feelings--Fruits of Repentance--Resurrected Vices + +CHAPTER XXXIV. +About Carson--General Buncombe--Hyde vs. Morgan--How Hyde Lost His Ranch +--The Great Landslide Case--The Trial--General Buncombe in Court--A +Wonderful Decision--A Serious Afterthought + +CHAPTER XXXV. +A New Travelling Companion--All Full and No Accommodations--How Captain +Nye found Room--and Caused Our Leaving to be Lamented--The Uses of +Tunnelling--A Notable Example--We Go into the "Claim" Business and Fail +--At the Bottom + +CHAPTER XXXVI. +A Quartz Mill--Amalgamation--"Screening Tailings"--First Quartz Mill in +Nevada--Fire Assay--A Smart Assayer--I stake for an advance + +CHAPTER XXXVII. +The Whiteman Cement Mine--Story of its Discovery--A Secret Expedition--A +Nocturnal Adventure--A Distressing Position--A Failure and a Week's +Holiday + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. +Mono Lake--Shampooing Made Easy--Thoughtless Act of Our Dog and the +Results--Lye Water--Curiosities of the Lake--Free Hotel--Some Funny +Incidents a Little Overdrawn + +CHAPTER XXXIX. +Visit to the Islands in Lake Mono--Ashes and Desolation--Life Amid Death +Our Boat Adrift--A Jump For Life--A Storm On the Lake--A Mass of Soap +Suds--Geological Curiosities--A Week On the Sierras--A Narrow Escape From +a Funny Explosion--"Stove Heap Gone" + +CHAPTER XL. +The "Wide West" Mine--It is "Interviewed" by Higbie--A Blind Lead--Worth +a Million--We are Rich At Last--Plans for the Future + +CHAPTER XLI. +A Rheumatic Patient--Day Dreams--An Unfortunate Stumble--I Leave +Suddenly--Another Patient--Higbie in the Cabin--Our Balloon Bursted +--Worth Nothing--Regrets and Explanations--Our Third Partner + +CHAPTER XLII. +What to do Next?--Obstacles I Had Met With--"Jack of All Trades"--Mining +Again--Target Shooting--I Turn City Editor--I Succeed Finely + +CHAPTER XLIII. +My Friend Boggs--The School Report--Boggs Pays Me An Old Debt--Virginia +City + +CHAPTER XLIV. +Flush Times--Plenty of Stock--Editorial Puffing--Stocks Given Me--Salting +Mines--A Tragedian In a New Role + +CHAPTER XLV. +Flush Times Continue--Sanitary Commission Fund--Wild Enthusiasm of the +People--Would not wait to Contribute--The Sanitary Flour Sack--It is +Carried to Gold Hill and Dayton--Final Reception in Virginia--Results of +the Sale--A Grand Total + +CHAPTER XLVI. +The Nabobs of Those Days--John Smith as a Traveler--Sudden Wealth--A +Sixty-Thousand-Dollar Horse--A Smart Telegraph Operator--A Nabob in New +York City--Charters an Omnibus--"Walk in, It's All Free"--"You Can't Pay +a Cent"--"Hold On, Driver, I Weaken"--Sociability of New Yorkers + +CHAPTER XLVII. +Buck Fanshaw's Death--The Cause Thereof--Preparations for His Burial +--Scotty Briggs the Committee Man--He Visits the Minister--Scotty Can't +Play His Hand--The Minister Gets Mixed--Both Begin to See--"All Down +Again But Nine"--Buck Fanshaw as a Citizen--How To "Shook Your Mother" +--The Funeral--Scotty Briggs as a Sunday School Teacher + +CHAPTER XLVIII. +The First Twenty-Six Graves in Nevada--The Prominent Men of the County +--The Man Who Had Killed His Dozen--Trial by Jury--Specimen Jurors--A +Private Grave Yard--The Desperadoes--Who They Killed--Waking up the Weary +Passenger--Satisfaction Without Fighting + +CHAPTER XLIX. +Fatal Shooting Affray--Robbery and Desperate Affray--A Specimen City +Official--A Marked Man--A Street Fight--Punishment of Crime + +CHAPTER L. +Captain Ned Blakely--Bill Nookes Receives Desired Information--Killing of +Blakely's Mate--A Walking Battery--Blakely Secures Nookes--Hang First and +Be Tried Afterwards--Captain Blakely as a Chaplain--The First Chapter of +Genesis Read at a Hanging--Nookes Hung--Blakely's Regrets + +CHAPTER LI. +The Weekly Occidental--A Ready Editor--A Novel--A Concentration of +Talent--The Heroes and the Heroines--The Dissolute Author Engaged +--Extraordinary Havoc With the Novel--A Highly Romantic Chapter--The Lovers +Separated--Jonah Out-done--A Lost Poem--The Aged Pilot Man--Storm On the +Erie Canal--Dollinger the Pilot Man--Terrific Gale--Danger Increases--A +Crisis Arrived--Saved as if by a Miracle + +CHAPTER LII. +Freights to California--Silver Bricks--Under Ground Mines--Timber +Supports--A Visit to the Mines--The Caved Mines--Total of Shipments in +1863 + +CHAPTER LIII. +Jim Blaine and his Grandfather's Ram--Filkin's Mistake--Old Miss Wagner +and her Glass Eye--Jacobs, the Coffin Dealer--Waiting for a Customer--His +Bargain With Old Robbins--Robbins Sues for Damage and Collects--A New Use +for Missionaries--The Effect--His Uncle Lem. and the Use Providence Made +of Him--Sad Fate of Wheeler--Devotion of His Wife--A Model Monument--What +About the Ram? + +CHAPTER LIV. +Chinese in Virginia City--Washing Bills--Habit of Imitation--Chinese +Immigration--A Visit to Chinatown--Messrs. Ah Sing, Hong Wo, See Yup, &c. + +CHAPTER LV. +Tired of Virginia City--An Old Schoolmate--A Two Years' Loan--Acting as +an Editor--Almost Receive an Offer--An Accident--Three Drunken Anecdotes +--Last Look at Mt. Davidson--A Beautiful Incident + +CHAPTER LVI. +Off for San Francisco--Western and Eastern Landscapes--The Hottest place +on Earth--Summer and Winter + +CHAPTER LVII. +California--Novelty of Seeing a Woman--"Well if it ain't a Child!"--One +Hundred and Fifty Dollars for a Kiss--Waiting for a turn + +CHAPTER LVIII. +Life in San Francisco--Worthless Stocks--My First Earthquake--Reportorial +Instincts--Effects of the Shocks--Incidents and Curiosities--Sabbath +Breakers--The Lodger and the Chambermaid--A Sensible Fashion to Follow +--Effects of the Earthquake on the Ministers + +CHAPTER LIX. +Poor Again--Slinking as a Business--A Model Collector--Misery loves +Company--Comparing Notes for Comfort--A Streak of Luck--Finding a Dime +--Wealthy by Comparison--Two Sumptuous Dinners + +CHAPTER LX. +An Old Friend--An Educated Miner--Pocket Mining--Freaks of Fortune + +CHAPTER LXI. +Dick Baker and his Cat--Tom Quartz's Peculiarities--On an Excursion +--Appearance On His Return--A Prejudiced Cat--Empty Pockets and a Roving +Life + +CHAPTER LXII. +Bound for the Sandwich Islands--The Three Captains--The Old Admiral--His +Daily Habits--His Well Fought Fields--An Unexpected Opponent--The Admiral +Overpowered--The Victor Declared a Hero + +CHAPTER LXIII. +Arrival at the Islands--Honolulu--What I Saw There--Dress and Habits of +the Inhabitants--The Animal Kingdom--Fruits and Delightful Effects + +CHAPTER LXIV. +An Excursion--Captain Phillips and his Turn-Out--A Horseback Ride--A +Vicious Animal--Nature and Art--Interesting Ruins--All Praise to the +Missionaries + +CHAPTER LXV. +Interesting Mementoes and Relics--An Old Legend of a Frightful Leap--An +Appreciative Horse--Horse Jockeys and Their Brothers--A New Trick--A Hay +Merchant--Good Country for Horse Lovers + +CHAPTER LXVI. +A Saturday Afternoon--Sandwich Island Girls on a Frolic--The Poi +Merchant--Grand Gala Day--A Native Dance--Church Membership--Cats and +Officials--An Overwhelming Discovery + +CHAPTER LXVII. +The Legislature of the Island--What Its President Has Seen--Praying for +an Enemy--Women's Rights--Romantic Fashions--Worship of the Shark--Desire +for Dress--Full Dress--Not Paris Style--Playing Empire--Officials and +Foreign Ambassadors--Overwhelming Magnificence + +CHAPTER LXVIII. +A Royal Funeral--Order of Procession--Pomp and Ceremony--A Striking +Contrast--A Sick Monarch--Human Sacrifices at His Death--Burial Orgies + +CHAPTER LXIX. +"Once more upon the Waters."--A Noisy Passenger--Several Silent Ones--A +Moonlight Scene--Fruits and Plantations + +CHAPTER LXX. +A Droll Character--Mrs. Beazely and Her Son--Meditations on Turnips--A +Letter from Horace Greeley--An Indignant Rejoinder--The Letter Translated +but too Late + +CHAPTER LXXI. +Kealakekua Bay--Death of Captain Cook--His Monument--Its Construction--On +Board the Schooner + +CHAPTER LXXII. +Young Kanakas in New England--A Temple Built by Ghosts--Female Bathers--I +Stood Guard--Women and Whiskey--A Fight for Religion--Arrival of +Missionaries + +CHAPTER LXXIII. +Native Canoes--Surf Bathing--A Sanctuary--How Built--The Queen's Rock +--Curiosities--Petrified Lava + +CHAPTER LXXIV. +Visit to the Volcano--The Crater--Pillar of Fire--Magnificent Spectacle +--A Lake of Fire + +CHAPTER LXXV. +The North Lake--Fountains of Fire--Streams of Burning Lava--Tidal Waves + +CHAPTER LXXVI. +A Reminiscence--Another Horse Story--My Ride with the Retired Milk Horse +--A Picnicing Excursion--Dead Volcano of Holeakala--Comparison with +Vesuvius--An Inside View + +CHAPTER LXXVII. +A Curious Character--A Series of Stories--Sad Fate of a Liar--Evidence of +Insanity + +CHAPTER LXXVIII. +Return to San Francisco--Ship Amusements--Preparing for Lecturing +--Valuable Assistance Secured--My First Attempt--The Audience Carried +--"All's Well that Ends Well." + +CHAPTER LXXIX. +Highwaymen--A Predicament--A Huge Joke--Farewell to California--At Home +Again--Great Changes. Moral. + + + +APPENDIX. +A.--Brief Sketch of Mormon History +B.--The Mountain Meadows Massacre +C.--Concerning a Frightful Assassination that was never Consummated + + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory--an +office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and +dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting +Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars +a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary," gave to the great position an +air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I +envied my brother. I coveted his distinction and his financial splendor, +but particularly and especially the long, strange journey he was going to +make, and the curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to +travel! I never had been away from home, and that word "travel" had a +seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of +miles away on the great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of +the Far West, and would see buffaloes and Indians, and prairie dogs, and +antelopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or +scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us all +about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines and the silver +mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and +pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and +silver on the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and +return home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and +the ocean, and "the isthmus" as if it was nothing of any consequence to +have seen those marvels face to face. What I suffered in contemplating +his happiness, pen cannot describe. And so, when he offered me, in cold +blood, the sublime position of private secretary under him, it appeared +to me that the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament was +rolled together as a scroll! I had nothing more to desire. My +contentment was complete. + +At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not much +packing up was necessary, because we were going in the overland stage +from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only allowed a +small quantity of baggage apiece. There was no Pacific railroad in those +fine times of ten or twelve years ago--not a single rail of it. +I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months--I had no thought of +staying longer than that. I meant to see all I could that was new and +strange, and then hurry home to business. I little thought that I would +not see the end of that three-month pleasure excursion for six or seven +uncommonly long years! + +I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars, and in due +time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis wharf on board a +steamboat bound up the Missouri River. + +We were six days going from St. Louis to "St. Jo."--a trip that was so +dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left no more impression on my +memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that many +days. No record is left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a confused +jumble of savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked over with +one wheel or the other; and of reefs which we butted and butted, and then +retired from and climbed over in some softer place; and of sand-bars +which we roosted on occasionally, and rested, and then got out our +crutches and sparred over. + +In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by land, for +she was walking most of the time, anyhow--climbing over reefs and +clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The +captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was more "shear" +and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the +deep sagacity not to say so. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph +was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dollars +apiece for tickets per overland coach to Carson City, Nevada. + +The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty breakfast, and +hurried to the starting-place. Then an inconvenience presented itself +which we had not properly appreciated before, namely, that one cannot +make a heavy traveling trunk stand for twenty-five pounds of baggage +--because it weighs a good deal more. But that was all we could take +--twenty-five pounds each. So we had to snatch our trunks open, and make a +selection in a good deal of a hurry. We put our lawful twenty-five +pounds apiece all in one valise, and shipped the trunks back to St. Louis +again. It was a sad parting, for now we had no swallow-tail coats and +white kid gloves to wear at Pawnee receptions in the Rocky Mountains, and +no stove-pipe hats nor patent-leather boots, nor anything else necessary +to make life calm and peaceful. We were reduced to a war-footing. Each +of us put on a rough, heavy suit of clothing, woolen army shirt and +"stogy" boots included; and into the valise we crowded a few white +shirts, some under-clothing and such things. My brother, the Secretary, +took along about four pounds of United States statutes and six pounds of +Unabridged Dictionary; for we did not know--poor innocents--that such +things could be bought in San Francisco on one day and received in Carson +City the next. I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & +Wesson's seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homoeopathic pill, +and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult. But I thought +it was grand. It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It only had +one fault--you could not hit anything with it. One of our "conductors" +practiced awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and +behaved herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving about, +and he got to shooting at other things, she came to grief. The Secretary +had a small-sized Colt's revolver strapped around him for protection +against the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it +uncapped. Mr. George Bemis was dismally formidable. George Bemis was +our fellow-traveler. + +We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original +"Allen" revolver, such as irreverent people called a "pepper-box." Simply +drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger +came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, +and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball. +To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat +which was probably never done with an "Allen" in the world. But George's +was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers +afterward said, "If she didn't get what she went after, she would fetch +something else." And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed +against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to +the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with +a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a +cheerful weapon--the "Allen." Sometimes all its six barrels would go off +at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, +but behind it. + +We took two or three blankets for protection against frosty weather in +the mountains. In the matter of luxuries we were modest--we took none +along but some pipes and five pounds of smoking tobacco. We had two +large canteens to carry water in, between stations on the Plains, and we +also took with us a little shot-bag of silver coin for daily expenses in +the way of breakfasts and dinners. + +By eight o'clock everything was ready, and we were on the other side of +the river. We jumped into the stage, the driver cracked his whip, and we +bowled away and left "the States" behind us. It was a superb summer +morning, and all the landscape was brilliant with sunshine. There was a +freshness and breeziness, too, and an exhilarating sense of emancipation +from all sorts of cares and responsibilities, that almost made us feel +that the years we had spent in the close, hot city, toiling and slaving, +had been wasted and thrown away. We were spinning along through Kansas, +and in the course of an hour and a half we were fairly abroad on the +great Plains. Just here the land was rolling--a grand sweep of regular +elevations and depressions as far as the eye could reach--like the +stately heave and swell of the ocean's bosom after a storm. And +everywhere were cornfields, accenting with squares of deeper green, this +limitless expanse of grassy land. But presently this sea upon dry ground +was to lose its "rolling" character and stretch away for seven hundred +miles as level as a floor! + +Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage, of the most sumptuous +description--an imposing cradle on wheels. It was drawn by six handsome +horses, and by the side of the driver sat the "conductor," the legitimate +captain of the craft; for it was his business to take charge and care of +the mails, baggage, express matter, and passengers. We three were the +only passengers, this trip. We sat on the back seat, inside. About all +the rest of the coach was full of mail bags--for we had three days' +delayed mails with us. Almost touching our knees, a perpendicular wall +of mail matter rose up to the roof. There was a great pile of it +strapped on top of the stage, and both the fore and hind boots were full. +We had twenty-seven hundred pounds of it aboard, the driver said--"a +little for Brigham, and Carson, and 'Frisco, but the heft of it for the +Injuns, which is powerful troublesome 'thout they get plenty of truck to +read." But as he just then got up a fearful convulsion of his countenance +which was suggestive of a wink being swallowed by an earthquake, we +guessed that his remark was intended to be facetious, and to mean that we +would unload the most of our mail matter somewhere on the Plains and +leave it to the Indians, or whosoever wanted it. + +We changed horses every ten miles, all day long, and fairly flew over the +hard, level road. We jumped out and stretched our legs every time the +coach stopped, and so the night found us still vivacious and unfatigued. + +After supper a woman got in, who lived about fifty miles further on, and +we three had to take turns at sitting outside with the driver and +conductor. Apparently she was not a talkative woman. She would sit +there in the gathering twilight and fasten her steadfast eyes on a +mosquito rooting into her arm, and slowly she would raise her other hand +till she had got his range, and then she would launch a slap at him that +would have jolted a cow; and after that she would sit and contemplate the +corpse with tranquil satisfaction--for she never missed her mosquito; she +was a dead shot at short range. She never removed a carcase, but left +them there for bait. I sat by this grim Sphynx and watched her kill +thirty or forty mosquitoes--watched her, and waited for her to say +something, but she never did. So I finally opened the conversation +myself. I said: + +"The mosquitoes are pretty bad, about here, madam." + +"You bet!" + +"What did I understand you to say, madam?" + +"You BET!" + +Then she cheered up, and faced around and said: + +"Danged if I didn't begin to think you fellers was deef and dumb. I did, +b'gosh. Here I've sot, and sot, and sot, a-bust'n muskeeters and +wonderin' what was ailin' ye. Fust I thot you was deef and dumb, then I +thot you was sick or crazy, or suthin', and then by and by I begin to +reckon you was a passel of sickly fools that couldn't think of nothing to +say. Wher'd ye come from?" + +The Sphynx was a Sphynx no more! The fountains of her great deep were +broken up, and she rained the nine parts of speech forty days and forty +nights, metaphorically speaking, and buried us under a desolating deluge +of trivial gossip that left not a crag or pinnacle of rejoinder +projecting above the tossing waste of dislocated grammar and decomposed +pronunciation! + +How we suffered, suffered, suffered! She went on, hour after hour, till +I was sorry I ever opened the mosquito question and gave her a start. +She never did stop again until she got to her journey's end toward +daylight; and then she stirred us up as she was leaving the stage (for we +were nodding, by that time), and said: + +"Now you git out at Cottonwood, you fellers, and lay over a couple o' +days, and I'll be along some time to-night, and if I can do ye any good +by edgin' in a word now and then, I'm right thar. Folks'll tell you't +I've always ben kind o' offish and partic'lar for a gal that's raised in +the woods, and I am, with the rag-tag and bob-tail, and a gal has to be, +if she wants to be anything, but when people comes along which is my +equals, I reckon I'm a pretty sociable heifer after all." + +We resolved not to "lay by at Cottonwood." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +About an hour and a half before daylight we were bowling along smoothly +over the road--so smoothly that our cradle only rocked in a gentle, +lulling way, that was gradually soothing us to sleep, and dulling our +consciousness--when something gave away under us! We were dimly aware of +it, but indifferent to it. The coach stopped. We heard the driver and +conductor talking together outside, and rummaging for a lantern, and +swearing because they could not find it--but we had no interest in +whatever had happened, and it only added to our comfort to think of those +people out there at work in the murky night, and we snug in our nest with +the curtains drawn. But presently, by the sounds, there seemed to be an +examination going on, and then the driver's voice said: + +"By George, the thoroughbrace is broke!" + +This startled me broad awake--as an undefined sense of calamity is always +apt to do. I said to myself: "Now, a thoroughbrace is probably part of a +horse; and doubtless a vital part, too, from the dismay in the driver's +voice. Leg, maybe--and yet how could he break his leg waltzing along +such a road as this? No, it can't be his leg. That is impossible, +unless he was reaching for the driver. Now, what can be the +thoroughbrace of a horse, I wonder? Well, whatever comes, I shall not +air my ignorance in this crowd, anyway." + +Just then the conductor's face appeared at a lifted curtain, and his +lantern glared in on us and our wall of mail matter. He said: +"Gents, you'll have to turn out a spell. Thoroughbrace is broke." + +We climbed out into a chill drizzle, and felt ever so homeless and +dreary. When I found that the thing they called a "thoroughbrace" was +the massive combination of belts and springs which the coach rocks itself +in, I said to the driver: + +"I never saw a thoroughbrace used up like that, before, that I can +remember. How did it happen?" + +"Why, it happened by trying to make one coach carry three days' mail +--that's how it happened," said he. "And right here is the very direction +which is wrote on all the newspaper-bags which was to be put out for the +Injuns for to keep 'em quiet. It's most uncommon lucky, becuz it's so +nation dark I should 'a' gone by unbeknowns if that air thoroughbrace +hadn't broke." + +I knew that he was in labor with another of those winks of his, though I +could not see his face, because he was bent down at work; and wishing him +a safe delivery, I turned to and helped the rest get out the mail-sacks. +It made a great pyramid by the roadside when it was all out. When they +had mended the thoroughbrace we filled the two boots again, but put no +mail on top, and only half as much inside as there was before. The +conductor bent all the seat-backs down, and then filled the coach just +half full of mail-bags from end to end. We objected loudly to this, for +it left us no seats. But the conductor was wiser than we, and said a bed +was better than seats, and moreover, this plan would protect his +thoroughbraces. We never wanted any seats after that. The lazy bed was +infinitely preferable. I had many an exciting day, subsequently, lying +on it reading the statutes and the dictionary, and wondering how the +characters would turn out. + +The conductor said he would send back a guard from the next station to +take charge of the abandoned mail-bags, and we drove on. + +It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped legs full length on +the mail sacks, and gazed out through the windows across the wide wastes +of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to where there was an expectant +look in the eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the form of a +tranquil and contented ecstasy. The stage whirled along at a spanking +gait, the breeze flapping curtains and suspended coats in a most +exhilarating way; the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the pattering +of the horses' hoofs, the cracking of the driver's whip, and his "Hi-yi! +g'lang!" were music; the spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared +to give us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up and look after +us with interest, or envy, or something; and as we lay and smoked the +pipe of peace and compared all this luxury with the years of tiresome +city life that had gone before it, we felt that there was only one +complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and we had found it. + +After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgotten, we three +climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and let the conductor have our +bed for a nap. And by and by, when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on +my face on top of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept +for an hour or more. That will give one an appreciable idea of those +matchless roads. Instinct will make a sleeping man grip a fast hold of +the railing when the stage jolts, but when it only swings and sways, no +grip is necessary. Overland drivers and conductors used to sit in their +places and sleep thirty or forty minutes at a time, on good roads, while +spinning along at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. I saw them do +it, often. There was no danger about it; a sleeping man will seize the +irons in time when the coach jolts. These men were hard worked, and it +was not possible for them to stay awake all the time. + +By and by we passed through Marysville, and over the Big Blue and Little +Sandy; thence about a mile, and entered Nebraska. About a mile further +on, we came to the Big Sandy--one hundred and eighty miles from St. +Joseph. + +As the sun was going down, we saw the first specimen of an animal known +familiarly over two thousand miles of mountain and desert--from Kansas +clear to the Pacific Ocean--as the "jackass rabbit." He is well named. +He is just like any other rabbit, except that he is from one third to +twice as large, has longer legs in proportion to his size, and has the +most preposterous ears that ever were mounted on any creature but a +jackass. + +When he is sitting quiet, thinking about his sins, or is absent-minded or +unapprehensive of danger, his majestic ears project above him +conspicuously; but the breaking of a twig will scare him nearly to death, +and then he tilts his ears back gently and starts for home. All you can +see, then, for the next minute, is his long gray form stretched out +straight and "streaking it" through the low sage-brush, head erect, eyes +right, and ears just canted a little to the rear, but showing you where +the animal is, all the time, the same as if he carried a jib. Now and +then he makes a marvelous spring with his long legs, high over the +stunted sage-brush, and scores a leap that would make a horse envious. +Presently he comes down to a long, graceful "lope," and shortly he +mysteriously disappears. He has crouched behind a sage-bush, and will +sit there and listen and tremble until you get within six feet of him, +when he will get under way again. But one must shoot at this creature +once, if he wishes to see him throw his heart into his heels, and do the +best he knows how. He is frightened clear through, now, and he lays his +long ears down on his back, straightens himself out like a yard-stick +every spring he makes, and scatters miles behind him with an easy +indifference that is enchanting. + +Our party made this specimen "hump himself," as the conductor said. The +secretary started him with a shot from the Colt; I commenced spitting at +him with my weapon; and all in the same instant the old "Allen's" whole +broadside let go with a rattling crash, and it is not putting it too +strong to say that the rabbit was frantic! He dropped his ears, set up +his tail, and left for San Francisco at a speed which can only be +described as a flash and a vanish! Long after he was out of sight we +could hear him whiz. + +I do not remember where we first came across "sage-brush," but as I have +been speaking of it I may as well describe it. + +This is easily done, for if the reader can imagine a gnarled and +venerable live oak-tree reduced to a little shrub two feet-high, with its +rough bark, its foliage, its twisted boughs, all complete, he can picture +the "sage-brush" exactly. Often, on lazy afternoons in the mountains, I +have lain on the ground with my face under a sage-bush, and entertained +myself with fancying that the gnats among its foliage were liliputian +birds, and that the ants marching and countermarching about its base were +liliputian flocks and herds, and myself some vast loafer from Brobdignag +waiting to catch a little citizen and eat him. + +It is an imposing monarch of the forest in exquisite miniature, is the +"sage-brush." Its foliage is a grayish green, and gives that tint to +desert and mountain. It smells like our domestic sage, and "sage-tea" +made from it taste like the sage-tea which all boys are so well +acquainted with. The sage-brush is a singularly hardy plant, and grows +right in the midst of deep sand, and among barren rocks, where nothing +else in the vegetable world would try to grow, except "bunch-grass." +--["Bunch-grass" grows on the bleak mountain-sides of Nevada and +neighboring territories, and offers excellent feed for stock, even in the +dead of winter, wherever the snow is blown aside and exposes it; +notwithstanding its unpromising home, bunch-grass is a better and more +nutritious diet for cattle and horses than almost any other hay or grass +that is known--so stock-men say.]--The sage-bushes grow from three to +six or seven feet apart, all over the mountains and deserts of the Far +West, clear to the borders of California. There is not a tree of any +kind in the deserts, for hundreds of miles--there is no vegetation at all +in a regular desert, except the sage-brush and its cousin the +"greasewood," which is so much like the sage-brush that the difference +amounts to little. Camp-fires and hot suppers in the deserts would be +impossible but for the friendly sage-brush. Its trunk is as large as a +boy's wrist (and from that up to a man's arm), and its crooked branches +are half as large as its trunk--all good, sound, hard wood, very like +oak. + +When a party camps, the first thing to be done is to cut sage-brush; and +in a few minutes there is an opulent pile of it ready for use. A hole a +foot wide, two feet deep, and two feet long, is dug, and sage-brush +chopped up and burned in it till it is full to the brim with glowing +coals. Then the cooking begins, and there is no smoke, and consequently +no swearing. Such a fire will keep all night, with very little +replenishing; and it makes a very sociable camp-fire, and one around +which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and +profoundly entertaining. + +Sage-brush is very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a distinguished +failure. Nothing can abide the taste of it but the jackass and his +illegitimate child the mule. But their testimony to its nutritiousness +is worth nothing, for they will eat pine knots, or anthracite coal, or +brass filings, or lead pipe, or old bottles, or anything that comes +handy, and then go off looking as grateful as if they had had oysters for +dinner. Mules and donkeys and camels have appetites that anything will +relieve temporarily, but nothing satisfy. + +In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of +my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a +critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of +getting one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as +an article of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet. +He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, +and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while +opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had +never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before, in his life. Then +he smacked his lips once or twice, and reached after the other sleeve. +Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a smile of such contentment +that it was plain to see that he regarded that as the daintiest thing +about an overcoat. The tails went next, along with some percussion caps +and cough candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople. And then my +newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance in that +--manuscript letters written for the home papers. But he was treading on +dangerous ground, now. He began to come across solid wisdom in those +documents that was rather weighty on his stomach; and occasionally he +would take a joke that would shake him up till it loosened his teeth; it +was getting to be perilous times with him, but he held his grip with good +courage and hopefully, till at last he began to stumble on statements +that not even a camel could swallow with impunity. He began to gag and +gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his forelegs to spread, and in about +a quarter of a minute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter's work-bench, +and died a death of indescribable agony. I went and pulled the +manuscript out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive creature had +choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements of fact +that I ever laid before a trusting public. + +I was about to say, when diverted from my subject, that occasionally one +finds sage-bushes five or six feet high, and with a spread of branch and +foliage in proportion, but two or two and a half feet is the usual +height. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +As the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we made preparation +for bed. We stirred up the hard leather letter-sacks, and the knotty +canvas bags of printed matter (knotty and uneven because of projecting +ends and corners of magazines, boxes and books). We stirred them up and +redisposed them in such a way as to make our bed as level as possible. +And we did improve it, too, though after all our work it had an upheaved +and billowy look about it, like a little piece of a stormy sea. Next we +hunted up our boots from odd nooks among the mail-bags where they had +settled, and put them on. Then we got down our coats, vests, pantaloons +and heavy woolen shirts, from the arm-loops where they had been swinging +all day, and clothed ourselves in them--for, there being no ladies either +at the stations or in the coach, and the weather being hot, we had looked +to our comfort by stripping to our underclothing, at nine o'clock in the +morning. All things being now ready, we stowed the uneasy Dictionary +where it would lie as quiet as possible, and placed the water-canteens +and pistols where we could find them in the dark. Then we smoked a final +pipe, and swapped a final yarn; after which, we put the pipes, tobacco +and bag of coin in snug holes and caves among the mail-bags, and then +fastened down the coach curtains all around, and made the place as "dark +as the inside of a cow," as the conductor phrased it in his picturesque +way. It was certainly as dark as any place could be--nothing was even +dimly visible in it. And finally, we rolled ourselves up like +silk-worms, each person in his own blanket, and sank peacefully to sleep. + +Whenever the stage stopped to change horses, we would wake up, and try to +recollect where we were--and succeed--and in a minute or two the stage +would be off again, and we likewise. We began to get into country, now, +threaded here and there with little streams. These had high, steep banks +on each side, and every time we flew down one bank and scrambled up the +other, our party inside got mixed somewhat. First we would all be down +in a pile at the forward end of the stage, nearly in a sitting posture, +and in a second we would shoot to the other end, and stand on our heads. +And we would sprawl and kick, too, and ward off ends and corners of +mail-bags that came lumbering over us and about us; and as the dust rose +from the tumult, we would all sneeze in chorus, and the majority of us +would grumble, and probably say some hasty thing, like: "Take your elbow +out of my ribs!--can't you quit crowding?" + +Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the other, the +Unabridged Dictionary would come too; and every time it came it damaged +somebody. One trip it "barked" the Secretary's elbow; the next trip it +hurt me in the stomach, and the third it tilted Bemis's nose up till he +could look down his nostrils--he said. The pistols and coin soon settled +to the bottom, but the pipes, pipe-stems, tobacco and canteens clattered +and floundered after the Dictionary every time it made an assault on us, +and aided and abetted the book by spilling tobacco in our eyes, and water +down our backs. + +Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable night. It wore +gradually away, and when at last a cold gray light was visible through +the puckers and chinks in the curtains, we yawned and stretched with +satisfaction, shed our cocoons, and felt that we had slept as much as was +necessary. By and by, as the sun rose up and warmed the world, we pulled +off our clothes and got ready for breakfast. We were just pleasantly in +time, for five minutes afterward the driver sent the weird music of his +bugle winding over the grassy solitudes, and presently we detected a low +hut or two in the distance. Then the rattling of the coach, the clatter +of our six horses' hoofs, and the driver's crisp commands, awoke to a +louder and stronger emphasis, and we went sweeping down on the station at +our smartest speed. It was fascinating--that old overland stagecoaching. + +We jumped out in undress uniform. The driver tossed his gathered reins +out on the ground, gaped and stretched complacently, drew off his heavy +buckskin gloves with great deliberation and insufferable dignity--taking +not the slightest notice of a dozen solicitous inquires after his health, +and humbly facetious and flattering accostings, and obsequious tenders of +service, from five or six hairy and half-civilized station-keepers and +hostlers who were nimbly unhitching our steeds and bringing the fresh +team out of the stables--for in the eyes of the stage-driver of that day, +station-keepers and hostlers were a sort of good enough low creatures, +useful in their place, and helping to make up a world, but not the kind +of beings which a person of distinction could afford to concern himself +with; while, on the contrary, in the eyes of the station-keeper and the +hostler, the stage-driver was a hero--a great and shining dignitary, the +world's favorite son, the envy of the people, the observed of the +nations. When they spoke to him they received his insolent silence +meekly, and as being the natural and proper conduct of so great a man; +when he opened his lips they all hung on his words with admiration (he +never honored a particular individual with a remark, but addressed it +with a broad generality to the horses, the stables, the surrounding +country and the human underlings); when he discharged a facetious +insulting personality at a hostler, that hostler was happy for the day; +when he uttered his one jest--old as the hills, coarse, profane, witless, +and inflicted on the same audience, in the same language, every time his +coach drove up there--the varlets roared, and slapped their thighs, and +swore it was the best thing they'd ever heard in all their lives. And +how they would fly around when he wanted a basin of water, a gourd of the +same, or a light for his pipe!--but they would instantly insult a +passenger if he so far forgot himself as to crave a favor at their hands. +They could do that sort of insolence as well as the driver they copied it +from--for, let it be borne in mind, the overland driver had but little +less contempt for his passengers than he had for his hostlers. + +The hostlers and station-keepers treated the really powerful conductor of +the coach merely with the best of what was their idea of civility, but +the driver was the only being they bowed down to and worshipped. How +admiringly they would gaze up at him in his high seat as he gloved +himself with lingering deliberation, while some happy hostler held the +bunch of reins aloft, and waited patiently for him to take it! And how +they would bombard him with glorifying ejaculations as he cracked his +long whip and went careering away. + +The station buildings were long, low huts, made of sundried, mud-colored +bricks, laid up without mortar (adobes, the Spaniards call these bricks, +and Americans shorten it to 'dobies). The roofs, which had no slant to +them worth speaking of, were thatched and then sodded or covered with a +thick layer of earth, and from this sprung a pretty rank growth of weeds +and grass. It was the first time we had ever seen a man's front yard on +top of his house. The building consisted of barns, stable-room for +twelve or fifteen horses, and a hut for an eating-room for passengers. +This latter had bunks in it for the station-keeper and a hostler or two. +You could rest your elbow on its eaves, and you had to bend in order to +get in at the door. In place of a window there was a square hole about +large enough for a man to crawl through, but this had no glass in it. +There was no flooring, but the ground was packed hard. There was no +stove, but the fire-place served all needful purposes. There were no +shelves, no cupboards, no closets. In a corner stood an open sack of +flour, and nestling against its base were a couple of black and venerable +tin coffee-pots, a tin teapot, a little bag of salt, and a side of bacon. + + +By the door of the station-keeper's den, outside, was a tin wash-basin, +on the ground. Near it was a pail of water and a piece of yellow bar +soap, and from the eaves hung a hoary blue woolen shirt, significantly +--but this latter was the station-keeper's private towel, and only two +persons in all the party might venture to use it--the stage-driver and +the conductor. The latter would not, from a sense of decency; the former +would not, because did not choose to encourage the advances of a +station-keeper. We had towels--in the valise; they might as well have +been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We (and the conductor) used our +handkerchiefs, and the driver his pantaloons and sleeves. By the door, +inside, was fastened a small old-fashioned looking-glass frame, with two +little fragments of the original mirror lodged down in one corner of it. +This arrangement afforded a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you when +you looked into it, with one half of your head set up a couple of inches +above the other half. From the glass frame hung the half of a comb by a +string--but if I had to describe that patriarch or die, I believe I would +order some sample coffins. + +It had come down from Esau and Samson, and had been accumulating hair +ever since--along with certain impurities. In one corner of the room +stood three or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches +of ammunition. The station-men wore pantaloons of coarse, country-woven +stuff, and into the seat and the inside of the legs were sewed ample +additions of buckskin, to do duty in place of leggings, when the man rode +horseback--so the pants were half dull blue and half yellow, and +unspeakably picturesque. The pants were stuffed into the tops of high +boots, the heels whereof were armed with great Spanish spurs, whose +little iron clogs and chains jingled with every step. The man wore a +huge beard and mustachios, an old slouch hat, a blue woolen shirt, no +suspenders, no vest, no coat--in a leathern sheath in his belt, a great +long "navy" revolver (slung on right side, hammer to the front), and +projecting from his boot a horn-handled bowie-knife. The furniture of +the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-chairs and +sofas were not present, and never had been, but they were represented by +two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench four feet long, and two empty +candle-boxes. The table was a greasy board on stilts, and the +table-cloth and napkins had not come--and they were not looking for them, +either. A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and a tin pint cup, +were at each man's place, and the driver had a queens-ware saucer that +had seen better days. Of course this duke sat at the head of the table. +There was one isolated piece of table furniture that bore about it a +touching air of grandeur in misfortune. This was the caster. It was +German silver, and crippled and rusty, but it was so preposterously out +of place there that it was suggestive of a tattered exiled king among +barbarians, and the majesty of its native position compelled respect even +in its degradation. + +There was only one cruet left, and that was a stopperless, fly-specked, +broken-necked thing, with two inches of vinegar in it, and a dozen +preserved flies with their heels up and looking sorry they had invested +there. + +The station-keeper upended a disk of last week's bread, of the shape and +size of an old-time cheese, and carved some slabs from it which were as +good as Nicholson pavement, and tenderer. + +He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but only the experienced old +hands made out to eat it, for it was condemned army bacon which the +United States would not feed to its soldiers in the forts, and the stage +company had bought it cheap for the sustenance of their passengers and +employees. We may have found this condemned army bacon further out on +the plains than the section I am locating it in, but we found it--there +is no gainsaying that. + +Then he poured for us a beverage which he called "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. + +He had no sugar and no milk--not even a spoon to stir the ingredients +with. + +We could not eat the bread or the meat, nor drink the "slumgullion." And +when I looked at that melancholy vinegar-cruet, I thought of the anecdote +(a very, very old one, even at that day) of the traveler who sat down to +a table which had nothing on it but a mackerel and a pot of mustard. He +asked the landlord if this was all. The landlord said: + +"All! Why, thunder and lightning, I should think there was mackerel +enough there for six." + +"But I don't like mackerel." + +"Oh--then help yourself to the mustard." + +In other days I had considered it a good, a very good, anecdote, but +there was a dismal plausibility about it, here, that took all the humor +out of it. + +Our breakfast was before us, but our teeth were idle. + +I tasted and smelt, and said I would take coffee, I believed. The +station-boss stopped dead still, and glared at me speechless. At last, +when he came to, he turned away and said, as one who communes with +himself upon a matter too vast to grasp: + +"Coffee! Well, if that don't go clean ahead of me, I'm d---d!" + +We could not eat, and there was no conversation among the hostlers and +herdsmen--we all sat at the same board. At least there was no +conversation further than a single hurried request, now and then, from +one employee to another. It was always in the same form, and always +gruffly friendly. Its western freshness and novelty startled me, at +first, and interested me; but it presently grew monotonous, and lost its +charm. It was: + +"Pass the bread, you son of a skunk!" No, I forget--skunk was not the +word; it seems to me it was still stronger than that; I know it was, in +fact, but it is gone from my memory, apparently. However, it is no +matter--probably it was too strong for print, anyway. It is the landmark +in my memory which tells me where I first encountered the vigorous new +vernacular of the occidental plains and mountains. + +We gave up the breakfast, and paid our dollar apiece and went back to our +mail-bag bed in the coach, and found comfort in our pipes. Right here we +suffered the first diminution of our princely state. We left our six +fine horses and took six mules in their place. But they were wild +Mexican fellows, and a man had to stand at the head of each of them and +hold him fast while the driver gloved and got himself ready. And when at +last he grasped the reins and gave the word, the men sprung suddenly away +from the mules' heads and the coach shot from the station as if it had +issued from a cannon. How the frantic animals did scamper! It was a +fierce and furious gallop--and the gait never altered for a moment till +we reeled off ten or twelve miles and swept up to the next collection of +little station-huts and stables. + +So we flew along all day. At 2 P.M. the belt of timber that fringes the +North Platte and marks its windings through the vast level floor of the +Plains came in sight. At 4 P.M. we crossed a branch of the river, and +at 5 P.M. we crossed the Platte itself, and landed at Fort Kearney, +fifty-six hours out from St. Joe--THREE HUNDRED MILES! + +Now that was stage-coaching on the great overland, ten or twelve years +ago, when perhaps not more than ten men in America, all told, expected to +live to see a railroad follow that route to the Pacific. But the +railroad is there, now, and it pictures a thousand odd comparisons and +contrasts in my mind to read the following sketch, in the New York Times, +of a recent trip over almost the very ground I have been describing. I +can scarcely comprehend the new state of things: + + "ACROSS THE CONTINENT. + + "At 4.20 P.M., Sunday, we rolled out of the station at Omaha, and + started westward on our long jaunt. A couple of hours out, dinner + was announced--an "event" to those of us who had yet to experience + what it is to eat in one of Pullman's hotels on wheels; so, stepping + into the car next forward of our sleeping palace, we found ourselves + in the dining-car. It was a revelation to us, that first dinner on + Sunday. And though we continued to dine for four days, and had as + many breakfasts and suppers, our whole party never ceased to admire + the perfection of the arrangements, and the marvelous results + achieved. Upon tables covered with snowy linen, and garnished with + services of solid silver, Ethiop waiters, flitting about in spotless + white, placed as by magic a repast at which Delmonico himself could + have had no occasion to blush; and, indeed, in some respects it + would be hard for that distinguished chef to match our menu; for, in + addition to all that ordinarily makes up a first-chop dinner, had we + not our antelope steak (the gormand who has not experienced this + --bah! what does he know of the feast of fat things?) our delicious + mountain-brook trout, and choice fruits and berries, and (sauce + piquant and unpurchasable!) our sweet-scented, appetite-compelling + air of the prairies? + + "You may depend upon it, we all did justice to the good things, and + as we washed them down with bumpers of sparkling Krug, whilst we + sped along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, agreed it was the + fastest living we had ever experienced. (We beat that, however, two + days afterward when we made twenty-seven miles in twenty-seven + minutes, while our Champagne glasses filled to the brim spilled not + a drop!) After dinner we repaired to our drawing-room car, and, as + it was Sabbath eve, intoned some of the grand old hymns--"Praise God + from whom," etc.; "Shining Shore," "Coronation," etc.--the voices of + the men singers and of the women singers blending sweetly in the + evening air, while our train, with its great, glaring Polyphemus + eye, lighting up long vistas of prairie, rushed into the night and + the Wild. Then to bed in luxurious couches, where we slept the + sleep of the just and only awoke the next morning (Monday) at eight + o'clock, to find ourselves at the crossing of the North Platte, + three hundred miles from Omaha--fifteen hours and forty minutes + out." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Another night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came, +by and by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses +of level greensward, bright sunlight, an impressive solitude utterly +without visible human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of +such amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed close at hand +were more than three mile away. We resumed undress uniform, climbed +a-top of the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side, shouted +occasionally at our frantic mules, merely to see them lay their ears back +and scamper faster, tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing away, +and leveled an outlook over the world-wide carpet about us for things new +and strange to gaze at. Even at this day it thrills me through and +through to think of the life, the gladness and the wild sense of freedom +that used to make the blood dance in my veins on those fine overland +mornings! + +Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prairie-dog +villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I remember rightly, +this latter was the regular cayote (pronounced ky-o-te) of the farther +deserts. And if it was, he was not a pretty creature or respectable +either, for I got well acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak +with confidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking +skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail +that forever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and +misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly +lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all +over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always +hungry. + +He is always poor, out of luck and friendless. The meanest creatures +despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is +so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are +pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it. And he +is so homely!--so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. +When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and +then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his head +a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush, +glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is about +out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and takes a deliberate survey +of you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again--another fifty and stop +again; and finally the gray of his gliding body blends with the gray of +the sage-brush, and he disappears. All this is when you make no +demonstration against him; but if you do, he develops a livelier interest +in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels and puts such a deal +of real estate between himself and your weapon, that by the time you have +raised the hammer you see that you need a minie rifle, and by the time +you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and by the time you +have "drawn a bead" on him you see well enough that nothing but an +unusually long-winded streak of lightning could reach him where he is +now. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy it +ever so much--especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of +himself, and has been brought up to think he knows something about speed. + +The cayote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of his, and +every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his shoulder that +will fill that dog entirely full of encouragement and worldly ambition, +and make him lay his head still lower to the ground, and stretch his neck +further to the front, and pant more fiercely, and stick his tail out +straighter behind, and move his furious legs with a yet wilder frenzy, +and leave a broader and broader, and higher and denser cloud of desert +sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake across the level plain! +And all this time the dog is only a short twenty feet behind the cayote, +and to save the soul of him he cannot understand why it is that he cannot +get perceptibly closer; and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him +madder and madder to see how gently the cayote glides along and never +pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he grows still more and more +incensed to see how shamefully he has been taken in by an entire +stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long, calm, soft-footed trot +is; and next he notices that he is getting fagged, and that the cayote +actually has to slacken speed a little to keep from running away from +him--and then that town-dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain +and weep and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach for the +cayote with concentrated and desperate energy. This "spurt" finds him +six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And +then, in the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the +cayote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something +about it which seems to say: "Well, I shall have to tear myself away from +you, bub--business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling +along this way all day"--and forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the +sudden splitting of a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that +dog is solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude! + +It makes his head swim. He stops, and looks all around; climbs the +nearest sand-mound, and gazes into the distance; shakes his head +reflectively, and then, without a word, he turns and jogs along back to +his train, and takes up a humble position under the hindmost wagon, and +feels unspeakably mean, and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at +half-mast for a week. And for as much as a year after that, whenever +there is a great hue and cry after a cayote, that dog will merely glance +in that direction without emotion, and apparently observe to himself, +"I believe I do not wish any of the pie." + +The cayote lives chiefly in the most desolate and forbidding desert, +along with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit and the raven, and gets an +uncertain and precarious living, and earns it. He seems to subsist +almost wholly on the carcases of oxen, mules and horses that have dropped +out of emigrant trains and died, and upon windfalls of carrion, and +occasional legacies of offal bequeathed to him by white men who have been +opulent enough to have something better to butcher than condemned army +bacon. + +He will eat anything in the world that his first cousins, the +desert-frequenting tribes of Indians will, and they will eat anything +they can bite. It is a curious fact that these latter are the only +creatures known to history who will eat nitro-glycerine and ask for more +if they survive. + +The cayote of the deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains has a peculiarly +hard time of it, owing to the fact that his relations, the Indians, are +just as apt to be the first to detect a seductive scent on the desert +breeze, and follow the fragrance to the late ox it emanated from, as he +is himself; and when this occurs he has to content himself with sitting +off at a little distance watching those people strip off and dig out +everything edible, and walk off with it. Then he and the waiting ravens +explore the skeleton and polish the bones. It is considered that the +cayote, and the obscene bird, and the Indian of the desert, testify their +blood kinship with each other in that they live together in the waste +places of the earth on terms of perfect confidence and friendship, while +hating all other creature and yearning to assist at their funerals. He +does not mind going a hundred miles to breakfast, and a hundred and fifty +to dinner, because he is sure to have three or four days between meals, +and he can just as well be traveling and looking at the scenery as lying +around doing nothing and adding to the burdens of his parents. + +We soon learned to recognize the sharp, vicious bark of the cayote as it +came across the murky plain at night to disturb our dreams among the +mail-sacks; and remembering his forlorn aspect and his hard fortune, made +shift to wish him the blessed novelty of a long day's good luck and a +limitless larder the morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Our new conductor (just shipped) had been without sleep for twenty hours. +Such a thing was very frequent. From St. Joseph, Missouri, to +Sacramento, California, by stage-coach, was nearly nineteen hundred +miles, and the trip was often made in fifteen days (the cars do it in +four and a half, now), but the time specified in the mail contracts, and +required by the schedule, was eighteen or nineteen days, if I remember +rightly. This was to make fair allowance for winter storms and snows, +and other unavoidable causes of detention. The stage company had +everything under strict discipline and good system. Over each two +hundred and fifty miles of road they placed an agent or superintendent, +and invested him with great authority. His beat or jurisdiction of two +hundred and fifty miles was called a "division." He purchased horses, +mules harness, and food for men and beasts, and distributed these things +among his stage stations, from time to time, according to his judgment of +what each station needed. He erected station buildings and dug wells. +He attended to the paying of the station-keepers, hostlers, drivers and +blacksmiths, and discharged them whenever he chose. He was a very, very +great man in his "division"--a kind of Grand Mogul, a Sultan of the +Indies, in whose presence common men were modest of speech and manner, +and in the glare of whose greatness even the dazzling stage-driver +dwindled to a penny dip. There were about eight of these kings, all +told, on the overland route. + +Next in rank and importance to the division-agent came the "conductor." +His beat was the same length as the agent's--two hundred and fifty miles. +He sat with the driver, and (when necessary) rode that fearful distance, +night and day, without other rest or sleep than what he could get perched +thus on top of the flying vehicle. Think of it! He had absolute charge +of the mails, express matter, passengers and stage, coach, until he +delivered them to the next conductor, and got his receipt for them. + +Consequently he had to be a man of intelligence, decision and +considerable executive ability. He was usually a quiet, pleasant man, +who attended closely to his duties, and was a good deal of a gentleman. +It was not absolutely necessary that the division-agent should be a +gentleman, and occasionally he wasn't. But he was always a general in +administrative ability, and a bull-dog in courage and determination +--otherwise the chieftainship over the lawless underlings of the overland +service would never in any instance have been to him anything but an +equivalent for a month of insolence and distress and a bullet and a +coffin at the end of it. There were about sixteen or eighteen conductors +on the overland, for there was a daily stage each way, and a conductor on +every stage. + +Next in real and official rank and importance, after the conductor, came +my delight, the driver--next in real but not in apparent importance--for +we have seen that in the eyes of the common herd the driver was to the +conductor as an admiral is to the captain of the flag-ship. The driver's +beat was pretty long, and his sleeping-time at the stations pretty short, +sometimes; and so, but for the grandeur of his position his would have +been a sorry life, as well as a hard and a wearing one. We took a new +driver every day or every night (for they drove backward and forward over +the same piece of road all the time), and therefore we never got as well +acquainted with them as we did with the conductors; and besides, they +would have been above being familiar with such rubbish as passengers, +anyhow, as a general thing. Still, we were always eager to get a sight +of each and every new driver as soon as the watch changed, for each and +every day we were either anxious to get rid of an unpleasant one, or +loath to part with a driver we had learned to like and had come to be +sociable and friendly with. And so the first question we asked the +conductor whenever we got to where we were to exchange drivers, was +always, "Which is him?" The grammar was faulty, maybe, but we could not +know, then, that it would go into a book some day. As long as everything +went smoothly, the overland driver was well enough situated, but if a +fellow driver got sick suddenly it made trouble, for the coach must go +on, and so the potentate who was about to climb down and take a luxurious +rest after his long night's siege in the midst of wind and rain and +darkness, had to stay where he was and do the sick man's work. Once, in +the Rocky Mountains, when I found a driver sound asleep on the box, and +the mules going at the usual break-neck pace, the conductor said never +mind him, there was no danger, and he was doing double duty--had driven +seventy-five miles on one coach, and was now going back over it on this +without rest or sleep. A hundred and fifty miles of holding back of six +vindictive mules and keeping them from climbing the trees! It sounds +incredible, but I remember the statement well enough. + +The station-keepers, hostlers, etc., were low, rough characters, as +already described; and from western Nebraska to Nevada a considerable +sprinkling of them might be fairly set down as outlaws--fugitives from +justice, criminals whose best security was a section of country which was +without law and without even the pretence of it. When the +"division-agent" issued an order to one of these parties he did it with +the full understanding that he might have to enforce it with a navy +six-shooter, and so he always went "fixed" to make things go along +smoothly. + +Now and then a division-agent was really obliged to shoot a hostler +through the head to teach him some simple matter that he could have +taught him with a club if his circumstances and surroundings had been +different. But they were snappy, able men, those division-agents, and +when they tried to teach a subordinate anything, that subordinate +generally "got it through his head." + +A great portion of this vast machinery--these hundreds of men and +coaches, and thousands of mules and horses--was in the hands of Mr. Ben +Holliday. All the western half of the business was in his hands. This +reminds me of an incident of Palestine travel which is pertinent here, so +I will transfer it just in the language in which I find it set down in my +Holy Land note-book: + + No doubt everybody has heard of Ben Holliday--a man of prodigious + energy, who used to send mails and passengers flying across the + continent in his overland stage-coaches like a very whirlwind--two + thousand long miles in fifteen days and a half, by the watch! But + this fragment of history is not about Ben Holliday, but about a + young New York boy by the name of Jack, who traveled with our small + party of pilgrims in the Holy Land (and who had traveled to + California in Mr. Holliday's overland coaches three years before, + and had by no means forgotten it or lost his gushing admiration of + Mr. H.) Aged nineteen. Jack was a good boy--a good-hearted and + always well-meaning boy, who had been reared in the city of New + York, and although he was bright and knew a great many useful + things, his Scriptural education had been a good deal neglected--to + such a degree, indeed, that all Holy Land history was fresh and new + to him, and all Bible names mysteries that had never disturbed his + virgin ear. + + Also in our party was an elderly pilgrim who was the reverse of + Jack, in that he was learned in the Scriptures and an enthusiast + concerning them. He was our encyclopedia, and we were never tired + of listening to his speeches, nor he of making them. He never + passed a celebrated locality, from Bashan to Bethlehem, without + illuminating it with an oration. One day, when camped near the + ruins of Jericho, he burst forth with something like this: + + "Jack, do you see that range of mountains over yonder that bounds + the Jordan valley? The mountains of Moab, Jack! Think of it, my + boy--the actual mountains of Moab--renowned in Scripture history! + We are actually standing face to face with those illustrious crags + and peaks--and for all we know" [dropping his voice impressively], + "our eyes may be resting at this very moment upon the spot WHERE + LIES THE MYSTERIOUS GRAVE OF MOSES! Think of it, Jack!" + + "Moses who?" (falling inflection). + + "Moses who! Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself--you ought to + be ashamed of such criminal ignorance. Why, Moses, the great guide, + soldier, poet, lawgiver of ancient Israel! Jack, from this spot + where we stand, to Egypt, stretches a fearful desert three hundred + miles in extent--and across that desert that wonderful man brought + the children of Israel!--guiding them with unfailing sagacity for + forty years over the sandy desolation and among the obstructing + rocks and hills, and landed them at last, safe and sound, within + sight of this very spot; and where we now stand they entered the + Promised Land with anthems of rejoicing! It was a wonderful, + wonderful thing to do, Jack! Think of it!" + + "Forty years? Only three hundred miles? Humph! Ben Holliday would + have fetched them through in thirty-six hours!" + +The boy meant no harm. He did not know that he had said anything that +was wrong or irreverent. And so no one scolded him or felt offended with +him--and nobody could but some ungenerous spirit incapable of excusing +the heedless blunders of a boy. + +At noon on the fifth day out, we arrived at the "Crossing of the South +Platte," alias "Julesburg," alias "Overland City," four hundred and +seventy miles from St. Joseph--the strangest, quaintest, funniest +frontier town that our untraveled eyes had ever stared at and been +astonished with. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +It did seem strange enough to see a town again after what appeared to us +such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless +solitude! We tumbled out into the busy street feeling like meteoric +people crumbled off the corner of some other world, and wakened up +suddenly in this. For an hour we took as much interest in Overland City +as if we had never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to +spare was because we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous +affair, called a "mud-wagon") and transfer our freight of mails. + +Presently we got under way again. We came to the shallow, yellow, muddy +South Platte, with its low banks and its scattering flat sand-bars and +pigmy islands--a melancholy stream straggling through the centre of the +enormous flat plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with +the naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on either +bank. The Platte was "up," they said--which made me wish I could see it +when it was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier. They said it +was a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands were liable +to swallow up horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford +it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once or twice in +midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands so threateningly that +we half believed we had dreaded and avoided the sea all our lives to be +shipwrecked in a "mud-wagon" in the middle of a desert at last. But we +dragged through and sped away toward the setting sun. + +Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred and fifty miles +from St. Joseph, our mud-wagon broke down. We were to be delayed five or +six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invitation, and joined a +party who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport +galloping over the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our +part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo +bull chased the passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook his +horse and took to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the matter for +some twenty-four hours, but at last he began to soften little by little, +and finally he said: + +"Well, it was not funny, and there was no sense in those gawks making +themselves so facetious over it. I tell you I was angry in earnest for +awhile. I should have shot that long gangly lubber they called Hank, if +I could have done it without crippling six or seven other people--but of +course I couldn't, the old 'Allen's' so confounded comprehensive. I wish +those loafers had been up in the tree; they wouldn't have wanted to laugh +so. If I had had a horse worth a cent--but no, the minute he saw that +buffalo bull wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised straight up in the +air and stood on his heels. The saddle began to slip, and I took him +round the neck and laid close to him, and began to pray. Then he came +down and stood up on the other end awhile, and the bull actually stopped +pawing sand and bellowing to contemplate the inhuman spectacle. + +"Then the bull made a pass at him and uttered a bellow that sounded +perfectly frightful, it was so close to me, and that seemed to literally +prostrate my horse's reason, and make a raving distracted maniac of him, +and I wish I may die if he didn't stand on his head for a quarter of a +minute and shed tears. He was absolutely out of his mind--he was, as +sure as truth itself, and he really didn't know what he was doing. Then +the bull came charging at us, and my horse dropped down on all fours and +took a fresh start--and then for the next ten minutes he would actually +throw one hand-spring after another so fast that the bull began to get +unsettled, too, and didn't know where to start in--and so he stood there +sneezing, and shovelling dust over his back, and bellowing every now and +then, and thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar circus horse for +breakfast, certain. Well, I was first out on his neck--the horse's, not +the bull's--and then underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head +up, and sometimes heels--but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be +ripping and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you +might say. Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us and brought away +some of my horse's tail (I suppose, but do not know, being pretty busy at +the time), but something made him hungry for solitude and suggested to +him to get up and hunt for it. + +"And then you ought to have seen that spider legged old skeleton go! and +you ought to have seen the bull cut out after him, too--head down, tongue +out, tail up, bellowing like everything, and actually mowing down the +weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a +whirlwind! By George, it was a hot race! I and the saddle were back on +the rump, and I had the bridle in my teeth and holding on to the pommel +with both hands. First we left the dogs behind; then we passed a jackass +rabbit; then we overtook a cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when +the rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to the left, +and as the saddle went down over the horse's rump he gave it a lift with +his heels that sent it more than four hundred yards up in the air, I wish +I may die in a minute if he didn't. I fell at the foot of the only +solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could +see with the naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark with +four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was +astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my +breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now, if he did not think of +one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously. +There was a possibility that the bull might not think of it, but there +were greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I would do in +case he did. It was a little over forty feet to the ground from where I +sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from the pommel of my saddle----" + +"Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with you?" + +"Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you talk. Of course I didn't. +No man could do that. It fell in the tree when it came down." + +"Oh--exactly." + +"Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end of it to the +limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and capable of sustaining +tons. I made a slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it down to see +the length. It reached down twenty-two feet--half way to the ground. +I then loaded every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt +satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one thing that I +dread, all right--but if he does, all right anyhow--I am fixed for him. +But don't you know that the very thing a man dreads is the thing that +always happens? Indeed it is so. I watched the bull, now, with anxiety +--anxiety which no one can conceive of who has not been in such a +situation and felt that at any moment death might come. Presently a +thought came into the bull's eye. I knew it! said I--if my nerve fails +now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded, he started in +to climb the tree----" + +"What, the bull?" + +"Of course--who else?" + +"But a bull can't climb a tree." + +"He can't, can't he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a +bull try?" + +"No! I never dreamt of such a thing." + +"Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then? Because you +never saw a thing done, is that any reason why it can't be done?" + +"Well, all right--go on. What did you do?" + +"The bull started up, and got along well for about ten feet, then slipped +and slid back. I breathed easier. He tried it again--got up a little +higher--slipped again. But he came at it once more, and this time he was +careful. He got gradually higher and higher, and my spirits went down +more and more. Up he came--an inch at a time--with his eyes hot, and his +tongue hanging out. Higher and higher--hitched his foot over the stump +of a limb, and looked up, as much as to say, 'You are my meat, friend.' +Up again--higher and higher, and getting more excited the closer he got. +He was within ten feet of me! I took a long breath,--and then said I, +'It is now or never.' I had the coil of the lariat all ready; I paid it +out slowly, till it hung right over his head; all of a sudden I let go of +the slack, and the slipnoose fell fairly round his neck! Quicker than +lightning I out with the Allen and let him have it in the face. It was +an awful roar, and must have scared the bull out of his senses. When the +smoke cleared away, there he was, dangling in the air, twenty foot from +the ground, and going out of one convulsion into another faster than you +could count! I didn't stop to count, anyhow--I shinned down the tree and +shot for home." + +"Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it?" + +"I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if it isn't." + +"Well, we can't refuse to believe it, and we don't. But if there were +some proofs----" + +"Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?" + +"No." + +"Did I bring back my horse?" + +"No." + +"Did you ever see the bull again?" + +"No." + +"Well, then, what more do you want? I never saw anybody as particular as +you are about a little thing like that." + +I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only missed it by +the skin of his teeth. This episode reminds me of an incident of my +brief sojourn in Siam, years afterward. The European citizens of a town +in the neighborhood of Bangkok had a prodigy among them by the name of +Eckert, an Englishman--a person famous for the number, ingenuity and +imposing magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating his most +celebrated falsehoods, and always trying to "draw him out" before +strangers; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he was invited to the house +where I was visiting, but nothing could seduce him into a specimen lie. +One day a planter named Bascom, an influential man, and a proud and +sometimes irascible one, invited me to ride over with him and call on +Eckert. As we jogged along, said he: + +"Now, do you know where the fault lies? It lies in putting Eckert on his +guard. The minute the boys go to pumping at Eckert he knows perfectly +well what they are after, and of course he shuts up his shell. Anybody +might know he would. But when we get there, we must play him finer than +that. Let him shape the conversation to suit himself--let him drop it or +change it whenever he wants to. Let him see that nobody is trying to +draw him out. Just let him have his own way. He will soon forget +himself and begin to grind out lies like a mill. Don't get impatient +--just keep quiet, and let me play him. I will make him lie. It does seem +to me that the boys must be blind to overlook such an obvious and simple +trick as that." + +Eckert received us heartily--a pleasant-spoken, gentle-mannered creature. +We sat in the veranda an hour, sipping English ale, and talking about the +king, and the sacred white elephant, the Sleeping Idol, and all manner of +things; and I noticed that my comrade never led the conversation himself +or shaped it, but simply followed Eckert's lead, and betrayed no +solicitude and no anxiety about anything. The effect was shortly +perceptible. Eckert began to grow communicative; he grew more and more +at his ease, and more and more talkative and sociable. Another hour +passed in the same way, and then all of a sudden Eckert said: + +"Oh, by the way! I came near forgetting. I have got a thing here to +astonish you. Such a thing as neither you nor any other man ever heard +of--I've got a cat that will eat cocoanut! Common green cocoanut--and +not only eat the meat, but drink the milk. It is so--I'll swear to it." + +A quick glance from Bascom--a glance that I understood--then: + +"Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a thing. Man, it is +impossible." + +"I knew you would say it. I'll fetch the cat." + +He went in the house. Bascom said: + +"There--what did I tell you? Now, that is the way to handle Eckert. You +see, I have petted him along patiently, and put his suspicions to sleep. +I am glad we came. You tell the boys about it when you go back. Cat eat +a cocoanut--oh, my! Now, that is just his way, exactly--he will tell the +absurdest lie, and trust to luck to get out of it again. + +"Cat eat a cocoanut--the innocent fool!" + +Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough. + +Bascom smiled. Said he: + +"I'll hold the cat--you bring a cocoanut." + +Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces. Bascom smuggled a +wink to me, and proffered a slice of the fruit to puss. She snatched it, +swallowed it ravenously, and asked for more! + +We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart. At least I was silent, +though Bascom cuffed his horse and cursed him a good deal, +notwithstanding the horse was behaving well enough. When I branched off +homeward, Bascom said: + +"Keep the horse till morning. And--you need not speak of this +--foolishness to the boys." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and +watching for the "pony-rider"--the fleet messenger who sped across the +continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred +miles in eight days! Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh +and blood to do! The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, +brimful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the day or night +his watch came on, and no matter whether it was winter or summer, +raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting, or whether his "beat" was a level +straight road or a crazy trail over mountain crags and precipices, or +whether it led through peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with +hostile Indians, he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be +off like the wind! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on duty. +He rode fifty miles without stopping, by daylight, moonlight, starlight, +or through the blackness of darkness--just as it happened. He rode a +splendid horse that was born for a racer and fed and lodged like a +gentleman; kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he +came crashing up to the station where stood two men holding fast a fresh, +impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in the +twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and were out of sight +before the spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look. Both rider +and horse went "flying light." The rider's dress was thin, and fitted +close; he wore a "round-about," and a skull-cap, and tucked his +pantaloons into his boot-tops like a race-rider. He carried no arms--he +carried nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the postage +on his literary freight was worth five dollars a letter. + +He got but little frivolous correspondence to carry--his bag had business +letters in it, mostly. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight, +too. He wore a little wafer of a racing-saddle, and no visible blanket. +He wore light shoes, or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets +strapped under the rider's thighs would each hold about the bulk of a +child's primer. They held many and many an important business chapter +and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as +gold-leaf, nearly, and thus bulk and weight were economized. The +stage-coach traveled about a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five miles +a day (twenty-four hours), the pony-rider about two hundred and fifty. +There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and +day, stretching in a long, scattering procession from Missouri to +California, forty flying eastward, and forty toward the west, and among +them making four hundred gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood and +see a deal of scenery every single day in the year. + +We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to see a pony-rider, +but somehow or other all that passed us and all that met us managed to +streak by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the +swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out of +the windows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and would +see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims: + +"HERE HE COMES!" + +Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away +across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears +against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so! + +In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, +rising and falling--sweeping toward us nearer and nearer--growing more +and more distinct, more and more sharply defined--nearer and still +nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear--another +instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's +hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and +go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm! + +So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for +the flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail-sack after +the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we might have doubted whether +we had seen any actual horse and man at all, maybe. + +We rattled through Scott's Bluffs Pass, by and by. It was along here +somewhere that we first came across genuine and unmistakable alkali water +in the road, and we cordially hailed it as a first-class curiosity, and a +thing to be mentioned with eclat in letters to the ignorant at home. +This water gave the road a soapy appearance, and in many places the +ground looked as if it had been whitewashed. I think the strange alkali +water excited us as much as any wonder we had come upon yet, and I know +we felt very complacent and conceited, and better satisfied with life +after we had added it to our list of things which we had seen and some +other people had not. In a small way we were the same sort of simpletons +as those who climb unnecessarily the perilous peaks of Mont Blanc and the +Matterhorn, and derive no pleasure from it except the reflection that it +isn't a common experience. But once in a while one of those parties +trips and comes darting down the long mountain-crags in a sitting +posture, making the crusted snow smoke behind him, flitting from bench to +bench, and from terrace to terrace, jarring the earth where he strikes, +and still glancing and flitting on again, sticking an iceberg into +himself every now and then, and tearing his clothes, snatching at things +to save himself, taking hold of trees and fetching them along with him, +roots and all, starting little rocks now and then, then big boulders, +then acres of ice and snow and patches of forest, gathering and still +gathering as he goes, adding and still adding to his massed and sweeping +grandeur as he nears a three thousand-foot precipice, till at last he +waves his hat magnificently and rides into eternity on the back of a +raging and tossing avalanche! + +This is all very fine, but let us not be carried away by excitement, but +ask calmly, how does this person feel about it in his cooler moments next +day, with six or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on top of him? + +We crossed the sand hills near the scene of the Indian mail robbery and +massacre of 1856, wherein the driver and conductor perished, and also all +the passengers but one, it was supposed; but this must have been a +mistake, for at different times afterward on the Pacific coast I was +personally acquainted with a hundred and thirty-three or four people who +were wounded during that massacre, and barely escaped with their lives. +There was no doubt of the truth of it--I had it from their own lips. One +of these parties told me that he kept coming across arrow-heads in his +system for nearly seven years after the massacre; and another of them +told me that he was struck so literally full of arrows that after the +Indians were gone and he could raise up and examine himself, he could not +restrain his tears, for his clothes were completely ruined. + +The most trustworthy tradition avers, however, that only one man, a +person named Babbitt, survived the massacre, and he was desperately +wounded. He dragged himself on his hands and knee (for one leg was +broken) to a station several miles away. He did it during portions of +two nights, lying concealed one day and part of another, and for more +than forty hours suffering unimaginable anguish from hunger, thirst and +bodily pain. The Indians robbed the coach of everything it contained, +including quite an amount of treasure. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +We passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh morning out we +found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow +(apparently) looming vast and solitary--a deep, dark, rich indigo blue in +hue, so portentously did the old colossus frown under his beetling brows +of storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in reality, but he +only seemed removed a little beyond the low ridge at our right. We +breakfasted at Horse-Shoe Station, six hundred and seventy-six miles out +from St. Joseph. We had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during +the afternoon we passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great discomfort +all the time we were in the neighborhood, being aware that many of the +trees we dashed by at arm's length concealed a lurking Indian or two. +During the preceding night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet through +the pony-rider's jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because +pony-riders were not allowed to stop and inquire into such things except +when killed. As long as they had life enough left in them they had to +stick to the horse and ride, even if the Indians had been waiting for +them a week, and were entirely out of patience. About two hours and a +half before we arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it +had fired four times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air that +the Indian had "skipped around so's to spile everything--and ammunition's +blamed skurse, too." The most natural inference conveyed by his manner of +speaking was, that in "skipping around," the Indian had taken an unfair +advantage. + +The coach we were in had a neat hole through its front--a reminiscence of +its last trip through this region. The bullet that made it wounded the +driver slightly, but he did not mind it much. He said the place to keep +a man "huffy" was down on the Southern Overland, among the Apaches, +before the company moved the stage line up on the northern route. He +said the Apaches used to annoy him all the time down there, and that he +came as near as anything to starving to death in the midst of abundance, +because they kept him so leaky with bullet holes that he "couldn't hold +his vittles." + +This person's statement were not generally believed. + +We shut the blinds down very tightly that first night in the hostile +Indian country, and lay on our arms. We slept on them some, but most of +the time we only lay on them. We did not talk much, but kept quiet and +listened. It was an inky-black night, and occasionally rainy. We were +among woods and rocks, hills and gorges--so shut in, in fact, that when +we peeped through a chink in a curtain, we could discern nothing. The +driver and conductor on top were still, too, or only spoke at long +intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in the midst of invisible +dangers. We listened to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the +grinding of the wheels through the muddy gravel; and the low wailing of +the wind; and all the time we had that absurd sense upon us, inseparable +from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the sense of remaining +perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the jolting and swaying of +the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the grinding of the wheels. +We listened a long time, with intent faculties and bated breath; every +time one of us would relax, and draw a long sigh of relief and start to +say something, a comrade would be sure to utter a sudden "Hark!" and +instantly the experimenter was rigid and listening again. So the +tiresome minutes and decades of minutes dragged away, until at last our +tense forms filmed over with a dulled consciousness, and we slept, if one +might call such a condition by so strong a name--for it was a sleep set +with a hair-trigger. It was a sleep seething and teeming with a weird +and distressful confusion of shreds and fag-ends of dreams--a sleep that +was a chaos. Presently, dreams and sleep and the sullen hush of the +night were startled by a ringing report, and cloven by such a long, wild, +agonizing shriek! Then we heard--ten steps from the stage-- + +"Help! help! help!" [It was our driver's voice.] + +"Kill him! Kill him like a dog!" + +"I'm being murdered! Will no man lend me a pistol?" + +"Look out! head him off! head him off!" + +[Two pistol shots; a confusion of voices and the trampling of many feet, +as if a crowd were closing and surging together around some object; +several heavy, dull blows, as with a club; a voice that said appealingly, +"Don't, gentlemen, please don't--I'm a dead man!" Then a fainter groan, +and another blow, and away sped the stage into the darkness, and left the +grisly mystery behind us.] + +What a startle it was! Eight seconds would amply cover the time it +occupied--maybe even five would do it. We only had time to plunge at a +curtain and unbuckle and unbutton part of it in an awkward and hindering +flurry, when our whip cracked sharply overhead, and we went rumbling and +thundering away, down a mountain "grade." + +We fed on that mystery the rest of the night--what was left of it, for it +was waning fast. It had to remain a present mystery, for all we could +get from the conductor in answer to our hails was something that sounded, +through the clatter of the wheels, like "Tell you in the morning!" + +So we lit our pipes and opened the corner of a curtain for a chimney, and +lay there in the dark, listening to each other's story of how he first +felt and how many thousand Indians he first thought had hurled themselves +upon us, and what his remembrance of the subsequent sounds was, and the +order of their occurrence. And we theorized, too, but there was never a +theory that would account for our driver's voice being out there, nor yet +account for his Indian murderers talking such good English, if they were +Indians. + +So we chatted and smoked the rest of the night comfortably away, our +boding anxiety being somehow marvelously dissipated by the real presence +of something to be anxious about. + +We never did get much satisfaction about that dark occurrence. All that +we could make out of the odds and ends of the information we gathered in +the morning, was that the disturbance occurred at a station; that we +changed drivers there, and that the driver that got off there had been +talking roughly about some of the outlaws that infested the region ("for +there wasn't a man around there but had a price on his head and didn't +dare show himself in the settlements," the conductor said); he had talked +roughly about these characters, and ought to have "drove up there with +his pistol cocked and ready on the seat alongside of him, and begun +business himself, because any softy would know they would be laying for +him." + +That was all we could gather, and we could see that neither the conductor +nor the new driver were much concerned about the matter. They plainly +had little respect for a man who would deliver offensive opinions of +people and then be so simple as to come into their presence unprepared to +"back his judgment," as they pleasantly phrased the killing of any +fellow-being who did not like said opinions. And likewise they plainly +had a contempt for the man's poor discretion in venturing to rouse the +wrath of such utterly reckless wild beasts as those outlaws--and the +conductor added: + +"I tell you it's as much as Slade himself want to do!" + +This remark created an entire revolution in my curiosity. I cared +nothing now about the Indians, and even lost interest in the murdered +driver. There was such magic in that name, SLADE! Day or night, now, I +stood always ready to drop any subject in hand, to listen to something +new about Slade and his ghastly exploits. Even before we got to Overland +City, we had begun to hear about Slade and his "division" (for he was a +"division-agent") on the Overland; and from the hour we had left Overland +City we had heard drivers and conductors talk about only three things +--"Californy," the Nevada silver mines, and this desperado Slade. And a +deal the most of the talk was about Slade. We had gradually come to have +a realizing sense of the fact that Slade was a man whose heart and hands +and soul were steeped in the blood of offenders against his dignity; a +man who awfully avenged all injuries, affront, insults or slights, of +whatever kind--on the spot if he could, years afterward if lack of +earlier opportunity compelled it; a man whose hate tortured him day and +night till vengeance appeased it--and not an ordinary vengeance either, +but his enemy's absolute death--nothing less; a man whose face would +light up with a terrible joy when he surprised a foe and had him at a +disadvantage. A high and efficient servant of the Overland, an outlaw +among outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once the +most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that +inhabited the savage fastnesses of the mountains. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and conductors had +been about this man Slade, ever since the day before we reached +Julesburg. In order that the eastern reader may have a clear conception +of what a Rocky Mountain desperado is, in his highest state of +development, I will reduce all this mass of overland gossip to one +straightforward narrative, and present it in the following shape: + +Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At about twenty-six years +of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled the country. At St. Joseph, +Missouri, he joined one of the early California-bound emigrant trains, +and was given the post of train-master. One day on the plains he had an +angry dispute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their +revolvers. But the driver was the quicker artist, and had his weapon +cocked first. So Slade said it was a pity to waste life on so small a +matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown on the ground and the +quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The unsuspecting driver agreed, and +threw down his pistol--whereupon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and +shot him dead! + +He made his escape, and lived a wild life for awhile, dividing his time +between fighting Indians and avoiding an Illinois sheriff, who had been +sent to arrest him for his first murder. It is said that in one Indian +battle he killed three savages with his own hand, and afterward cut their +ears off and sent them, with his compliments, to the chief of the tribe. + +Slade soon gained a name for fearless resolution, and this was sufficient +merit to procure for him the important post of overland division-agent at +Julesburg, in place of Mr. Jules, removed. For some time previously, the +company's horses had been frequently stolen, and the coaches delayed, by +gangs of outlaws, who were wont to laugh at the idea of any man's having +the temerity to resent such outrages. Slade resented them promptly. + +The outlaws soon found that the new agent was a man who did not fear +anything that breathed the breath of life. He made short work of all +offenders. The result was that delays ceased, the company's property was +let alone, and no matter what happened or who suffered, Slade's coaches +went through, every time! True, in order to bring about this wholesome +change, Slade had to kill several men--some say three, others say four, +and others six--but the world was the richer for their loss. The first +prominent difficulty he had was with the ex-agent Jules, who bore the +reputation of being a reckless and desperate man himself. Jules hated +Slade for supplanting him, and a good fair occasion for a fight was all +he was waiting for. By and by Slade dared to employ a man whom Jules had +once discharged. Next, Slade seized a team of stage-horses which he +accused Jules of having driven off and hidden somewhere for his own use. +War was declared, and for a day or two the two men walked warily about +the streets, seeking each other, Jules armed with a double-barreled shot +gun, and Slade with his history-creating revolver. Finally, as Slade +stepped into a store Jules poured the contents of his gun into him from +behind the door. Slade was plucky, and Jules got several bad pistol +wounds in return. + +Then both men fell, and were carried to their respective lodgings, both +swearing that better aim should do deadlier work next time. Both were +bedridden a long time, but Jules got to his feet first, and gathering his +possessions together, packed them on a couple of mules, and fled to the +Rocky Mountains to gather strength in safety against the day of +reckoning. For many months he was not seen or heard of, and was +gradually dropped out of the remembrance of all save Slade himself. But +Slade was not the man to forget him. On the contrary, common report said +that Slade kept a reward standing for his capture, dead or alive! + +After awhile, seeing that Slade's energetic administration had restored +peace and order to one of the worst divisions of the road, the overland +stage company transferred him to the Rocky Ridge division in the Rocky +Mountains, to see if he could perform a like miracle there. It was the +very paradise of outlaws and desperadoes. There was absolutely no +semblance of law there. Violence was the rule. Force was the only +recognized authority. The commonest misunderstandings were settled on +the spot with the revolver or the knife. Murders were done in open day, +and with sparkling frequency, and nobody thought of inquiring into them. +It was considered that the parties who did the killing had their private +reasons for it; for other people to meddle would have been looked upon as +indelicate. After a murder, all that Rocky Mountain etiquette required +of a spectator was, that he should help the gentleman bury his game +--otherwise his churlishness would surely be remembered against him the +first time he killed a man himself and needed a neighborly turn in +interring him. + +Slade took up his residence sweetly and peacefully in the midst of this +hive of horse-thieves and assassins, and the very first time one of them +aired his insolent swaggerings in his presence he shot him dead! He +began a raid on the outlaws, and in a singularly short space of time he +had completely stopped their depredations on the stage stock, recovered a +large number of stolen horses, killed several of the worst desperadoes of +the district, and gained such a dread ascendancy over the rest that they +respected him, admired him, feared him, obeyed him! He wrought the same +marvelous change in the ways of the community that had marked his +administration at Overland City. He captured two men who had stolen +overland stock, and with his own hands he hanged them. He was supreme +judge in his district, and he was jury and executioner likewise--and not +only in the case of offences against his employers, but against passing +emigrants as well. On one occasion some emigrants had their stock lost +or stolen, and told Slade, who chanced to visit their camp. With a +single companion he rode to a ranch, the owners of which he suspected, +and opening the door, commenced firing, killing three, and wounding the +fourth. + +From a bloodthirstily interesting little Montana book.--["The Vigilantes +of Montana," by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale.]--I take this paragraph: + + "While on the road, Slade held absolute sway. He would ride down to + a station, get into a quarrel, turn the house out of windows, and + maltreat the occupants most cruelly. The unfortunates had no means + of redress, and were compelled to recuperate as best they could." + +On one of these occasions, it is said he killed the father of the fine +little half-breed boy Jemmy, whom he adopted, and who lived with his +widow after his execution. Stories of Slade's hanging men, and of +innumerable assaults, shootings, stabbings and beatings, in which he was +a principal actor, form part of the legends of the stage line. As for +minor quarrels and shootings, it is absolutely certain that a minute +history of Slade's life would be one long record of such practices. + +Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy revolver. The legends say +that one morning at Rocky Ridge, when he was feeling comfortable, he saw +a man approaching who had offended him some days before--observe the fine +memory he had for matters like that--and, "Gentlemen," said Slade, +drawing, "it is a good twenty-yard shot--I'll clip the third button on +his coat!" Which he did. The bystanders all admired it. And they all +attended the funeral, too. + +On one occasion a man who kept a little whisky-shelf at the station did +something which angered Slade--and went and made his will. A day or two +afterward Slade came in and called for some brandy. The man reached +under the counter (ostensibly to get a bottle--possibly to get something +else), but Slade smiled upon him that peculiarly bland and satisfied +smile of his which the neighbors had long ago learned to recognize as a +death-warrant in disguise, and told him to "none of that!--pass out the +high-priced article." So the poor bar-keeper had to turn his back and +get the high-priced brandy from the shelf; and when he faced around again +he was looking into the muzzle of Slade's pistol. "And the next +instant," added my informant, impressively, "he was one of the deadest +men that ever lived." + +The stage-drivers and conductors told us that sometimes Slade would leave +a hated enemy wholly unmolested, unnoticed and unmentioned, for weeks +together--had done it once or twice at any rate. And some said they +believed he did it in order to lull the victims into unwatchfulness, so +that he could get the advantage of them, and others said they believed he +saved up an enemy that way, just as a schoolboy saves up a cake, and made +the pleasure go as far as it would by gloating over the anticipation. +One of these cases was that of a Frenchman who had offended Slade. +To the surprise of everybody Slade did not kill him on the spot, but let +him alone for a considerable time. Finally, however, he went to the +Frenchman's house very late one night, knocked, and when his enemy opened +the door, shot him dead--pushed the corpse inside the door with his foot, +set the house on fire and burned up the dead man, his widow and three +children! I heard this story from several different people, and they +evidently believed what they were saying. It may be true, and it may +not. "Give a dog a bad name," etc. + +Slade was captured, once, by a party of men who intended to lynch him. +They disarmed him, and shut him up in a strong log-house, and placed a +guard over him. He prevailed on his captors to send for his wife, so +that he might have a last interview with her. She was a brave, loving, +spirited woman. She jumped on a horse and rode for life and death. +When she arrived they let her in without searching her, and before the +door could be closed she whipped out a couple of revolvers, and she and +her lord marched forth defying the party. And then, under a brisk fire, +they mounted double and galloped away unharmed! + +In the fulness of time Slade's myrmidons captured his ancient enemy +Jules, whom they found in a well-chosen hiding-place in the remote +fastnesses of the mountains, gaining a precarious livelihood with his +rifle. They brought him to Rocky Ridge, bound hand and foot, and +deposited him in the middle of the cattle-yard with his back against a +post. It is said that the pleasure that lit Slade's face when he heard +of it was something fearful to contemplate. He examined his enemy to see +that he was securely tied, and then went to bed, content to wait till +morning before enjoying the luxury of killing him. Jules spent the night +in the cattle-yard, and it is a region where warm nights are never known. +In the morning Slade practised on him with his revolver, nipping the +flesh here and there, and occasionally clipping off a finger, while Jules +begged him to kill him outright and put him out of his misery. Finally +Slade reloaded, and walking up close to his victim, made some +characteristic remarks and then dispatched him. The body lay there half +a day, nobody venturing to touch it without orders, and then Slade +detailed a party and assisted at the burial himself. But he first cut +off the dead man's ears and put them in his vest pocket, where he carried +them for some time with great satisfaction. That is the story as I have +frequently heard it told and seen it in print in California newspapers. +It is doubtless correct in all essential particulars. + +In due time we rattled up to a stage-station, and sat down to +breakfast with a half-savage, half-civilized company of armed and +bearded mountaineers, ranchmen and station employees. The most +gentlemanly-appearing, quiet and affable officer we had yet found along +the road in the Overland Company's service was the person who sat at the +head of the table, at my elbow. Never youth stared and shivered as I did +when I heard them call him SLADE! + +Here was romance, and I sitting face to face with it!--looking upon it +--touching it--hobnobbing with it, as it were! Here, right by my side, was +the actual ogre who, in fights and brawls and various ways, had taken the +lives of twenty-six human beings, or all men lied about him! I suppose I +was the proudest stripling that ever traveled to see strange lands and +wonderful people. + +He was so friendly and so gentle-spoken that I warmed to him in +spite of his awful history. It was hardly possible to realize that +this pleasant person was the pitiless scourge of the outlaws, the +raw-head-and-bloody-bones the nursing mothers of the mountains terrified +their children with. And to this day I can remember nothing remarkable +about Slade except that his face was rather broad across the cheek bones, +and that the cheek bones were low and the lips peculiarly thin and +straight. But that was enough to leave something of an effect upon me, +for since then I seldom see a face possessing those characteristics +without fancying that the owner of it is a dangerous man. + +The coffee ran out. At least it was reduced to one tin-cupful, and Slade +was about to take it when he saw that my cup was empty. + +He politely offered to fill it, but although I wanted it, I politely +declined. I was afraid he had not killed anybody that morning, and might +be needing diversion. But still with firm politeness he insisted on +filling my cup, and said I had traveled all night and better deserved it +than he--and while he talked he placidly poured the fluid, to the last +drop. I thanked him and drank it, but it gave me no comfort, for I could +not feel sure that he would not be sorry, presently, that he had given it +away, and proceed to kill me to distract his thoughts from the loss. +But nothing of the kind occurred. We left him with only twenty-six dead +people to account for, and I felt a tranquil satisfaction in the thought +that in so judiciously taking care of No. 1 at that breakfast-table I had +pleasantly escaped being No. 27. Slade came out to the coach and saw us +off, first ordering certain rearrangements of the mail-bags for our +comfort, and then we took leave of him, satisfied that we should hear of +him again, some day, and wondering in what connection. + + + + + +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.txt or 8582.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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