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diff --git a/8584.txt b/8584.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6240a3a --- /dev/null +++ b/8584.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2113 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Roughing It, Part 3., 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 3. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 2, 2004 [EBook #8584] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 3. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + ROUGHING IT + + by Mark Twain + + 1880 + + Part 3. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +We were approaching the end of our long journey. It was the morning of +the twentieth day. At noon we would reach Carson City, the capital of +Nevada Territory. We were not glad, but sorry. It had been a fine +pleasure trip; we had fed fat on wonders every day; we were now well +accustomed to stage life, and very fond of it; so the idea of coming to a +stand-still and settling down to a humdrum existence in a village was not +agreeable, but on the contrary depressing. + +Visibly our new home was a desert, walled in by barren, snow-clad +mountains. There was not a tree in sight. There was no vegetation but +the endless sage-brush and greasewood. All nature was gray with it. We +were plowing through great deeps of powdery alkali dust that rose in +thick clouds and floated across the plain like smoke from a burning +house. + +We were coated with it like millers; so were the coach, the mules, the +mail-bags, the driver--we and the sage-brush and the other scenery were +all one monotonous color. Long trains of freight wagons in the distance +envelope in ascending masses of dust suggested pictures of prairies on +fire. These teams and their masters were the only life we saw. +Otherwise we moved in the midst of solitude, silence and desolation. +Every twenty steps we passed the skeleton of some dead beast of burthen, +with its dust-coated skin stretched tightly over its empty ribs. +Frequently a solemn raven sat upon the skull or the hips and contemplated +the passing coach with meditative serenity. + +By and by Carson City was pointed out to us. It nestled in the edge of a +great plain and was a sufficient number of miles away to look like an +assemblage of mere white spots in the shadow of a grim range of mountains +overlooking it, whose summits seemed lifted clear out of companionship +and consciousness of earthly things. + +We arrived, disembarked, and the stage went on. It was a "wooden" town; +its population two thousand souls. The main street consisted of four or +five blocks of little white frame stores which were too high to sit down +on, but not too high for various other purposes; in fact, hardly high +enough. They were packed close together, side by side, as if room were +scarce in that mighty plain. + +The sidewalk was of boards that were more or less loose and inclined to +rattle when walked upon. In the middle of the town, opposite the stores, +was the "plaza" which is native to all towns beyond the Rocky Mountains +--a large, unfenced, level vacancy, with a liberty pole in it, and very +useful as a place for public auctions, horse trades, and mass meetings, +and likewise for teamsters to camp in. Two other sides of the plaza were +faced by stores, offices and stables. + +The rest of Carson City was pretty scattering. + +We were introduced to several citizens, at the stage-office and on the +way up to the Governor's from the hotel--among others, to a Mr. Harris, +who was on horseback; he began to say something, but interrupted himself +with the remark: + +"I'll have to get you to excuse me a minute; yonder is the witness that +swore I helped to rob the California coach--a piece of impertinent +intermeddling, sir, for I am not even acquainted with the man." + +Then he rode over and began to rebuke the stranger with a six-shooter, +and the stranger began to explain with another. When the pistols were +emptied, the stranger resumed his work (mending a whip-lash), and Mr. +Harris rode by with a polite nod, homeward bound, with a bullet through +one of his lungs, and several in his hips; and from them issued little +rivulets of blood that coursed down the horse's sides and made the animal +look quite picturesque. I never saw Harris shoot a man after that but it +recalled to mind that first day in Carson. + +This was all we saw that day, for it was two o'clock, now, and according +to custom the daily "Washoe Zephyr" set in; a soaring dust-drift about +the size of the United States set up edgewise came with it, and the +capital of Nevada Territory disappeared from view. + +Still, there were sights to be seen which were not wholly uninteresting +to new comers; for the vast dust cloud was thickly freckled with things +strange to the upper air--things living and dead, that flitted hither and +thither, going and coming, appearing and disappearing among the rolling +billows of dust--hats, chickens and parasols sailing in the remote +heavens; blankets, tin signs, sage-brush and shingles a shade lower; +door-mats and buffalo robes lower still; shovels and coal scuttles on the +next grade; glass doors, cats and little children on the next; disrupted +lumber yards, light buggies and wheelbarrows on the next; and down only +thirty or forty feet above ground was a scurrying storm of emigrating +roofs and vacant lots. + +It was something to see that much. I could have seen more, if I could +have kept the dust out of my eyes. + +But seriously a Washoe wind is by no means a trifling matter. It blows +flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs occasionally, rolls up tin ones +like sheet music, now and then blows a stage coach over and spills the +passengers; and tradition says the reason there are so many bald people +there, is, that the wind blows the hair off their heads while they are +looking skyward after their hats. Carson streets seldom look inactive on +Summer afternoons, because there are so many citizens skipping around +their escaping hats, like chambermaids trying to head off a spider. + +The "Washoe Zephyr" (Washoe is a pet nickname for Nevada) is a peculiar +Scriptural wind, in that no man knoweth "whence it cometh." That is to +say, where it originates. It comes right over the mountains from the +West, but when one crosses the ridge he does not find any of it on the +other side! It probably is manufactured on the mountain-top for the +occasion, and starts from there. It is a pretty regular wind, in the +summer time. Its office hours are from two in the afternoon till two the +next morning; and anybody venturing abroad during those twelve hours +needs to allow for the wind or he will bring up a mile or two to leeward +of the point he is aiming at. And yet the first complaint a Washoe +visitor to San Francisco makes, is that the sea winds blow so, there! +There is a good deal of human nature in that. + +We found the state palace of the Governor of Nevada Territory to consist +of a white frame one-story house with two small rooms in it and a +stanchion supported shed in front--for grandeur--it compelled the respect +of the citizen and inspired the Indians with awe. The newly arrived +Chief and Associate Justices of the Territory, and other machinery of the +government, were domiciled with less splendor. They were boarding around +privately, and had their offices in their bedrooms. + +The Secretary and I took quarters in the "ranch" of a worthy French lady +by the name of Bridget O'Flannigan, a camp follower of his Excellency the +Governor. She had known him in his prosperity as commander-in-chief of +the Metropolitan Police of New York, and she would not desert him in his +adversity as Governor of Nevada. + +Our room was on the lower floor, facing the plaza, and when we had got +our bed, a small table, two chairs, the government fire-proof safe, and +the Unabridged Dictionary into it, there was still room enough left for a +visitor--may be two, but not without straining the walls. But the walls +could stand it--at least the partitions could, for they consisted simply +of one thickness of white "cotton domestic" stretched from corner to +corner of the room. This was the rule in Carson--any other kind of +partition was the rare exception. And if you stood in a dark room and +your neighbors in the next had lights, the shadows on your canvas told +queer secrets sometimes! Very often these partitions were made of old +flour sacks basted together; and then the difference between the common +herd and the aristocracy was, that the common herd had unornamented +sacks, while the walls of the aristocrat were overpowering with +rudimental fresco--i.e., red and blue mill brands on the flour sacks. + +Occasionally, also, the better classes embellished their canvas by +pasting pictures from Harper's Weekly on them. In many cases, too, the +wealthy and the cultured rose to spittoons and other evidences of a +sumptuous and luxurious taste. [Washoe people take a joke so hard that I +must explain that the above description was only the rule; there were +many honorable exceptions in Carson--plastered ceilings and houses that +had considerable furniture in them.--M. T.] + +We had a carpet and a genuine queen's-ware washbowl. Consequently we +were hated without reserve by the other tenants of the O'Flannigan +"ranch." When we added a painted oilcloth window curtain, we simply took +our lives into our own hands. To prevent bloodshed I removed up stairs +and took up quarters with the untitled plebeians in one of the fourteen +white pine cot-bedsteads that stood in two long ranks in the one sole +room of which the second story consisted. + +It was a jolly company, the fourteen. They were principally voluntary +camp-followers of the Governor, who had joined his retinue by their own +election at New York and San Francisco and came along, feeling that in +the scuffle for little territorial crumbs and offices they could not make +their condition more precarious than it was, and might reasonably expect +to make it better. They were popularly known as the "Irish Brigade," +though there were only four or five Irishmen among all the Governor's +retainers. + +His good-natured Excellency was much annoyed at the gossip his henchmen +created--especially when there arose a rumor that they were paid +assassins of his, brought along to quietly reduce the democratic vote +when desirable! + +Mrs. O'Flannigan was boarding and lodging them at ten dollars a week +apiece, and they were cheerfully giving their notes for it. They were +perfectly satisfied, but Bridget presently found that notes that could +not be discounted were but a feeble constitution for a Carson +boarding-house. So she began to harry the Governor to find employment +for the "Brigade." Her importunities and theirs together drove him to a +gentle desperation at last, and he finally summoned the Brigade to the +presence. Then, said he: + +"Gentlemen, I have planned a lucrative and useful service for you +--a service which will provide you with recreation amid noble landscapes, +and afford you never ceasing opportunities for enriching your minds by +observation and study. I want you to survey a railroad from Carson City +westward to a certain point! When the legislature meets I will have the +necessary bill passed and the remuneration arranged." + +"What, a railroad over the Sierra Nevada Mountains?" + +"Well, then, survey it eastward to a certain point!" + +He converted them into surveyors, chain-bearers and so on, and turned +them loose in the desert. It was "recreation" with a vengeance! +Recreation on foot, lugging chains through sand and sage-brush, under a +sultry sun and among cattle bones, cayotes and tarantulas. + +"Romantic adventure" could go no further. They surveyed very slowly, +very deliberately, very carefully. They returned every night during the +first week, dusty, footsore, tired, and hungry, but very jolly. They +brought in great store of prodigious hairy spiders--tarantulas--and +imprisoned them in covered tumblers up stairs in the "ranch." After the +first week, they had to camp on the field, for they were getting well +eastward. They made a good many inquiries as to the location of that +indefinite "certain point," but got no information. At last, to a +peculiarly urgent inquiry of "How far eastward?" Governor Nye +telegraphed back: + +"To the Atlantic Ocean, blast you!--and then bridge it and go on!" + +This brought back the dusty toilers, who sent in a report and ceased from +their labors. The Governor was always comfortable about it; he said Mrs. +O'Flannigan would hold him for the Brigade's board anyhow, and he +intended to get what entertainment he could out of the boys; he said, +with his old-time pleasant twinkle, that he meant to survey them into +Utah and then telegraph Brigham to hang them for trespass! + +The surveyors brought back more tarantulas with them, and so we had quite +a menagerie arranged along the shelves of the room. Some of these +spiders could straddle over a common saucer with their hairy, muscular +legs, and when their feelings were hurt, or their dignity offended, they +were the wickedest-looking desperadoes the animal world can furnish. +If their glass prison-houses were touched ever so lightly they were up +and spoiling for a fight in a minute. Starchy?--proud? Indeed, they +would take up a straw and pick their teeth like a member of Congress. +There was as usual a furious "zephyr" blowing the first night of the +brigade's return, and about midnight the roof of an adjoining stable blew +off, and a corner of it came crashing through the side of our ranch. +There was a simultaneous awakening, and a tumultuous muster of the +brigade in the dark, and a general tumbling and sprawling over each other +in the narrow aisle between the bedrows. In the midst of the turmoil, +Bob H---- sprung up out of a sound sleep, and knocked down a shelf with +his head. Instantly he shouted: + +"Turn out, boys--the tarantulas is loose!" + +No warning ever sounded so dreadful. Nobody tried, any longer, to leave +the room, lest he might step on a tarantula. Every man groped for a +trunk or a bed, and jumped on it. Then followed the strangest silence--a +silence of grisly suspense it was, too--waiting, expectancy, fear. It +was as dark as pitch, and one had to imagine the spectacle of those +fourteen scant-clad men roosting gingerly on trunks and beds, for not a +thing could be seen. Then came occasional little interruptions of the +silence, and one could recognize a man and tell his locality by his +voice, or locate any other sound a sufferer made by his gropings or +changes of position. The occasional voices were not given to much +speaking--you simply heard a gentle ejaculation of "Ow!" followed by a +solid thump, and you knew the gentleman had felt a hairy blanket or +something touch his bare skin and had skipped from a bed to the floor. +Another silence. Presently you would hear a gasping voice say: + +"Su--su--something's crawling up the back of my neck!" + +Every now and then you could hear a little subdued scramble and a +sorrowful "O Lord!" and then you knew that somebody was getting away from +something he took for a tarantula, and not losing any time about it, +either. Directly a voice in the corner rang out wild and clear: + +"I've got him! I've got him!" [Pause, and probable change of +circumstances.] "No, he's got me! Oh, ain't they never going to fetch a +lantern!" + +The lantern came at that moment, in the hands of Mrs. O'Flannigan, whose +anxiety to know the amount of damage done by the assaulting roof had not +prevented her waiting a judicious interval, after getting out of bed and +lighting up, to see if the wind was done, now, up stairs, or had a larger +contract. + +The landscape presented when the lantern flashed into the room was +picturesque, and might have been funny to some people, but was not to us. +Although we were perched so strangely upon boxes, trunks and beds, and so +strangely attired, too, we were too earnestly distressed and too +genuinely miserable to see any fun about it, and there was not the +semblance of a smile anywhere visible. I know I am not capable of +suffering more than I did during those few minutes of suspense in the +dark, surrounded by those creeping, bloody-minded tarantulas. I had +skipped from bed to bed and from box to box in a cold agony, and every +time I touched anything that was furzy I fancied I felt the fangs. I had +rather go to war than live that episode over again. Nobody was hurt. +The man who thought a tarantula had "got him" was mistaken--only a crack +in a box had caught his finger. Not one of those escaped tarantulas was +ever seen again. There were ten or twelve of them. We took candles and +hunted the place high and low for them, but with no success. Did we go +back to bed then? We did nothing of the kind. Money could not have +persuaded us to do it. We sat up the rest of the night playing cribbage +and keeping a sharp lookout for the enemy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +It was the end of August, and the skies were cloudless and the weather +superb. In two or three weeks I had grown wonderfully fascinated with +the curious new country and concluded to put off my return to "the +States" awhile. I had grown well accustomed to wearing a damaged slouch +hat, blue woolen shirt, and pants crammed into boot-tops, and gloried in +the absence of coat, vest and braces. I felt rowdyish and "bully," (as +the historian Josephus phrases it, in his fine chapter upon the +destruction of the Temple). It seemed to me that nothing could be so +fine and so romantic. I had become an officer of the government, but +that was for mere sublimity. The office was an unique sinecure. I had +nothing to do and no salary. I was private Secretary to his majesty the +Secretary and there was not yet writing enough for two of us. So Johnny +K---- and I devoted our time to amusement. He was the young son of an +Ohio nabob and was out there for recreation. He got it. We had heard a +world of talk about the marvellous beauty of Lake Tahoe, and finally +curiosity drove us thither to see it. Three or four members of the +Brigade had been there and located some timber lands on its shores and +stored up a quantity of provisions in their camp. We strapped a couple +of blankets on our shoulders and took an axe apiece and started--for we +intended to take up a wood ranch or so ourselves and become wealthy. +We were on foot. The reader will find it advantageous to go horseback. +We were told that the distance was eleven miles. We tramped a long time +on level ground, and then toiled laboriously up a mountain about a +thousand miles high and looked over. No lake there. We descended on the +other side, crossed the valley and toiled up another mountain three or +four thousand miles high, apparently, and looked over again. No lake +yet. We sat down tired and perspiring, and hired a couple of Chinamen to +curse those people who had beguiled us. Thus refreshed, we presently +resumed the march with renewed vigor and determination. We plodded on, +two or three hours longer, and at last the Lake burst upon us--a noble +sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the +level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that +towered aloft full three thousand feet higher still! It was a vast oval, +and one would have to use up eighty or a hundred good miles in traveling +around it. As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly +photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the +fairest picture the whole earth affords. + +We found the small skiff belonging to the Brigade boys, and without loss +of time set out across a deep bend of the lake toward the landmarks that +signified the locality of the camp. I got Johnny to row--not because I +mind exertion myself, but because it makes me sick to ride backwards when +I am at work. But I steered. A three-mile pull brought us to the camp +just as the night fell, and we stepped ashore very tired and wolfishly +hungry. In a "cache" among the rocks we found the provisions and the +cooking utensils, and then, all fatigued as I was, I sat down on a +boulder and superintended while Johnny gathered wood and cooked supper. +Many a man who had gone through what I had, would have wanted to rest. + +It was a delicious supper--hot bread, fried bacon, and black coffee. +It was a delicious solitude we were in, too. Three miles away was a +saw-mill and some workmen, but there were not fifteen other human beings +throughout the wide circumference of the lake. As the darkness closed +down and the stars came out and spangled the great mirror with jewels, we +smoked meditatively in the solemn hush and forgot our troubles and our +pains. In due time we spread our blankets in the warm sand between two +large boulders and soon feel asleep, careless of the procession of ants +that passed in through rents in our clothing and explored our persons. +Nothing could disturb the sleep that fettered us, for it had been fairly +earned, and if our consciences had any sins on them they had to adjourn +court for that night, any way. The wind rose just as we were losing +consciousness, and we were lulled to sleep by the beating of the surf +upon the shore. + +It is always very cold on that lake shore in the night, but we had plenty +of blankets and were warm enough. We never moved a muscle all night, but +waked at early dawn in the original positions, and got up at once, +thoroughly refreshed, free from soreness, and brim full of friskiness. +There is no end of wholesome medicine in such an experience. That +morning we could have whipped ten such people as we were the day before +--sick ones at any rate. But the world is slow, and people will go to +"water cures" and "movement cures" and to foreign lands for health. +Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy +to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator. I do +not mean the oldest and driest mummies, of course, but the fresher ones. +The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and +delicious. And why shouldn't it be?--it is the same the angels breathe. +I think that hardly any amount of fatigue can be gathered together that a +man cannot sleep off in one night on the sand by its side. Not under a +roof, but under the sky; it seldom or never rains there in the summer +time. I know a man who went there to die. But he made a failure of it. +He was a skeleton when he came, and could barely stand. He had no +appetite, and did nothing but read tracts and reflect on the future. +Three months later he was sleeping out of doors regularly, eating all he +could hold, three times a day, and chasing game over mountains three +thousand feet high for recreation. And he was a skeleton no longer, but +weighed part of a ton. This is no fancy sketch, but the truth. His +disease was consumption. I confidently commend his experience to other +skeletons. + +I superintended again, and as soon as we had eaten breakfast we got in +the boat and skirted along the lake shore about three miles and +disembarked. We liked the appearance of the place, and so we claimed +some three hundred acres of it and stuck our "notices" on a tree. It was +yellow pine timber land--a dense forest of trees a hundred feet high and +from one to five feet through at the butt. It was necessary to fence our +property or we could not hold it. That is to say, it was necessary to +cut down trees here and there and make them fall in such a way as to form +a sort of enclosure (with pretty wide gaps in it). We cut down three +trees apiece, and found it such heart-breaking work that we decided to +"rest our case" on those; if they held the property, well and good; if +they didn't, let the property spill out through the gaps and go; it was +no use to work ourselves to death merely to save a few acres of land. +Next day we came back to build a house--for a house was also necessary, +in order to hold the property. We decided to build a substantial +log-house and excite the envy of the Brigade boys; but by the time we had +cut and trimmed the first log it seemed unnecessary to be so elaborate, +and so we concluded to build it of saplings. However, two saplings, duly +cut and trimmed, compelled recognition of the fact that a still modester +architecture would satisfy the law, and so we concluded to build a +"brush" house. We devoted the next day to this work, but we did so much +"sitting around" and discussing, that by the middle of the afternoon we +had achieved only a half-way sort of affair which one of us had to watch +while the other cut brush, lest if both turned our backs we might not be +able to find it again, it had such a strong family resemblance to the +surrounding vegetation. But we were satisfied with it. + +We were land owners now, duly seized and possessed, and within the +protection of the law. Therefore we decided to take up our residence on +our own domain and enjoy that large sense of independence which only such +an experience can bring. Late the next afternoon, after a good long +rest, we sailed away from the Brigade camp with all the provisions and +cooking utensils we could carry off--borrow is the more accurate word +--and just as the night was falling we beached the boat at our own landing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +If there is any life that is happier than the life we led on our timber +ranch for the next two or three weeks, it must be a sort of life which I +have not read of in books or experienced in person. We did not see a +human being but ourselves during the time, or hear any sounds but those +that were made by the wind and the waves, the sighing of the pines, and +now and then the far-off thunder of an avalanche. The forest about us +was dense and cool, the sky above us was cloudless and brilliant with +sunshine, the broad lake before us was glassy and clear, or rippled and +breezy, or black and storm-tossed, according to Nature's mood; and its +circling border of mountain domes, clothed with forests, scarred with +land-slides, cloven by canons and valleys, and helmeted with glittering +snow, fitly framed and finished the noble picture. The view was always +fascinating, bewitching, entrancing. The eye was never tired of gazing, +night or day, in calm or storm; it suffered but one grief, and that was +that it could not look always, but must close sometimes in sleep. + +We slept in the sand close to the water's edge, between two protecting +boulders, which took care of the stormy night-winds for us. We never +took any paregoric to make us sleep. At the first break of dawn we were +always up and running foot-races to tone down excess of physical vigor +and exuberance of spirits. That is, Johnny was--but I held his hat. +While smoking the pipe of peace after breakfast we watched the sentinel +peaks put on the glory of the sun, and followed the conquering light as +it swept down among the shadows, and set the captive crags and forests +free. We watched the tinted pictures grow and brighten upon the water +till every little detail of forest, precipice and pinnacle was wrought in +and finished, and the miracle of the enchanter complete. Then to +"business." + +That is, drifting around in the boat. We were on the north shore. +There, the rocks on the bottom are sometimes gray, sometimes white. +This gives the marvelous transparency of the water a fuller advantage +than it has elsewhere on the lake. We usually pushed out a hundred yards +or so from shore, and then lay down on the thwarts, in the sun, and let +the boat drift by the hour whither it would. We seldom talked. +It interrupted the Sabbath stillness, and marred the dreams the luxurious +rest and indolence brought. The shore all along was indented with deep, +curved bays and coves, bordered by narrow sand-beaches; and where the +sand ended, the steep mountain-sides rose right up aloft into space--rose +up like a vast wall a little out of the perpendicular, and thickly wooded +with tall pines. + +So singularly clear was the water, that where it was only twenty or +thirty feet deep the bottom was so perfectly distinct that the boat +seemed floating in the air! Yes, where it was even eighty feet deep. +Every little pebble was distinct, every speckled trout, every +hand's-breadth of sand. Often, as we lay on our faces, a granite +boulder, as large as a village church, would start out of the bottom +apparently, and seem climbing up rapidly to the surface, till presently +it threatened to touch our faces, and we could not resist the impulse to +seize an oar and avert the danger. But the boat would float on, and the +boulder descend again, and then we could see that when we had been +exactly above it, it must still have been twenty or thirty feet below the +surface. Down through the transparency of these great depths, the water +was not merely transparent, but dazzlingly, brilliantly so. All objects +seen through it had a bright, strong vividness, not only of outline, but +of every minute detail, which they would not have had when seen simply +through the same depth of atmosphere. So empty and airy did all spaces +seem below us, and so strong was the sense of floating high aloft in +mid-nothingness, that we called these boat-excursions "balloon-voyages." + +We fished a good deal, but we did not average one fish a week. We could +see trout by the thousand winging about in the emptiness under us, or +sleeping in shoals on the bottom, but they would not bite--they could see +the line too plainly, perhaps. We frequently selected the trout we +wanted, and rested the bait patiently and persistently on the end of his +nose at a depth of eighty feet, but he would only shake it off with an +annoyed manner, and shift his position. + +We bathed occasionally, but the water was rather chilly, for all it +looked so sunny. Sometimes we rowed out to the "blue water," a mile or +two from shore. It was as dead blue as indigo there, because of the +immense depth. By official measurement the lake in its centre is one +thousand five hundred and twenty-five feet deep! + +Sometimes, on lazy afternoons, we lolled on the sand in camp, and smoked +pipes and read some old well-worn novels. At night, by the camp-fire, we +played euchre and seven-up to strengthen the mind--and played them with +cards so greasy and defaced that only a whole summer's acquaintance with +them could enable the student to tell the ace of clubs from the jack of +diamonds. + +We never slept in our "house." It never recurred to us, for one thing; +and besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough. We +did not wish to strain it. + +By and by our provisions began to run short, and we went back to the old +camp and laid in a new supply. We were gone all day, and reached home +again about night-fall, pretty tired and hungry. While Johnny was +carrying the main bulk of the provisions up to our "house" for future +use, I took the loaf of bread, some slices of bacon, and the coffee-pot, +ashore, set them down by a tree, lit a fire, and went back to the boat to +get the frying-pan. While I was at this, I heard a shout from Johnny, +and looking up I saw that my fire was galloping all over the premises! +Johnny was on the other side of it. He had to run through the flames to +get to the lake shore, and then we stood helpless and watched the +devastation. + +The ground was deeply carpeted with dry pine-needles, and the fire +touched them off as if they were gunpowder. It was wonderful to see with +what fierce speed the tall sheet of flame traveled! My coffee-pot was +gone, and everything with it. In a minute and a half the fire seized +upon a dense growth of dry manzanita chapparal six or eight feet high, +and then the roaring and popping and crackling was something terrific. +We were driven to the boat by the intense heat, and there we remained, +spell-bound. + +Within half an hour all before us was a tossing, blinding tempest of +flame! It went surging up adjacent ridges--surmounted them and +disappeared in the canons beyond--burst into view upon higher and farther +ridges, presently--shed a grander illumination abroad, and dove again +--flamed out again, directly, higher and still higher up the +mountain-side--threw out skirmishing parties of fire here and there, and +sent them trailing their crimson spirals away among remote ramparts and +ribs and gorges, till as far as the eye could reach the lofty +mountain-fronts were webbed as it were with a tangled network of red lava +streams. Away across the water the crags and domes were lit with a ruddy +glare, and the firmament above was a reflected hell! + +Every feature of the spectacle was repeated in the glowing mirror of the +lake! Both pictures were sublime, both were beautiful; but that in the +lake had a bewildering richness about it that enchanted the eye and held +it with the stronger fascination. + +We sat absorbed and motionless through four long hours. We never thought +of supper, and never felt fatigue. But at eleven o'clock the +conflagration had traveled beyond our range of vision, and then darkness +stole down upon the landscape again. + +Hunger asserted itself now, but there was nothing to eat. The provisions +were all cooked, no doubt, but we did not go to see. We were homeless +wanderers again, without any property. Our fence was gone, our house +burned down; no insurance. Our pine forest was well scorched, the dead +trees all burned up, and our broad acres of manzanita swept away. Our +blankets were on our usual sand-bed, however, and so we lay down and went +to sleep. The next morning we started back to the old camp, but while +out a long way from shore, so great a storm came up that we dared not try +to land. So I baled out the seas we shipped, and Johnny pulled heavily +through the billows till we had reached a point three or four miles +beyond the camp. The storm was increasing, and it became evident that it +was better to take the hazard of beaching the boat than go down in a +hundred fathoms of water; so we ran in, with tall white-caps following, +and I sat down in the stern-sheets and pointed her head-on to the shore. +The instant the bow struck, a wave came over the stern that washed crew +and cargo ashore, and saved a deal of trouble. We shivered in the lee of +a boulder all the rest of the day, and froze all the night through. In +the morning the tempest had gone down, and we paddled down to the camp +without any unnecessary delay. We were so starved that we ate up the +rest of the Brigade's provisions, and then set out to Carson to tell them +about it and ask their forgiveness. It was accorded, upon payment of +damages. + +We made many trips to the lake after that, and had many a hair-breadth +escape and blood-curdling adventure which will never be recorded in any +history. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +I resolved to have a horse to ride. I had never seen such wild, free, +magnificent horsemanship outside of a circus as these picturesquely-clad +Mexicans, Californians and Mexicanized Americans displayed in Carson +streets every day. How they rode! Leaning just gently forward out of +the perpendicular, easy and nonchalant, with broad slouch-hat brim blown +square up in front, and long riata swinging above the head, they swept +through the town like the wind! The next minute they were only a sailing +puff of dust on the far desert. If they trotted, they sat up gallantly +and gracefully, and seemed part of the horse; did not go jiggering up and +down after the silly Miss-Nancy fashion of the riding-schools. I had +quickly learned to tell a horse from a cow, and was full of anxiety to +learn more. I was resolved to buy a horse. + +While the thought was rankling in my mind, the auctioneer came skurrying +through the plaza on a black beast that had as many humps and corners on +him as a dromedary, and was necessarily uncomely; but he was "going, +going, at twenty-two!--horse, saddle and bridle at twenty-two dollars, +gentlemen!" and I could hardly resist. + +A man whom I did not know (he turned out to be the auctioneer's brother) +noticed the wistful look in my eye, and observed that that was a very +remarkable horse to be going at such a price; and added that the saddle +alone was worth the money. It was a Spanish saddle, with ponderous +'tapidaros', and furnished with the ungainly sole-leather covering with +the unspellable name. I said I had half a notion to bid. Then this +keen-eyed person appeared to me to be "taking my measure"; but I +dismissed the suspicion when he spoke, for his manner was full of +guileless candor and truthfulness. Said he: + +"I know that horse--know him well. You are a stranger, I take it, and so +you might think he was an American horse, maybe, but I assure you he is +not. He is nothing of the kind; but--excuse my speaking in a low voice, +other people being near--he is, without the shadow of a doubt, a Genuine +Mexican Plug!" + +I did not know what a Genuine Mexican Plug was, but there was something +about this man's way of saying it, that made me swear inwardly that I +would own a Genuine Mexican Plug, or die. + +"Has he any other--er--advantages?" I inquired, suppressing what +eagerness I could. + +He hooked his forefinger in the pocket of my army-shirt, led me to one +side, and breathed in my ear impressively these words: + +"He can out-buck anything in America!" + +"Going, going, going--at twent--ty--four dollars and a half, gen--" + +"Twenty-seven!" I shouted, in a frenzy. + +"And sold!" said the auctioneer, and passed over the Genuine Mexican Plug +to me. + +I could scarcely contain my exultation. I paid the money, and put the +animal in a neighboring livery-stable to dine and rest himself. + +In the afternoon I brought the creature into the plaza, and certain +citizens held him by the head, and others by the tail, while I mounted +him. As soon as they let go, he placed all his feet in a bunch together, +lowered his back, and then suddenly arched it upward, and shot me +straight into the air a matter of three or four feet! I came as straight +down again, lit in the saddle, went instantly up again, came down almost +on the high pommel, shot up again, and came down on the horse's neck--all +in the space of three or four seconds. Then he rose and stood almost +straight up on his hind feet, and I, clasping his lean neck desperately, +slid back into the saddle and held on. He came down, and immediately +hoisted his heels into the air, delivering a vicious kick at the sky, and +stood on his forefeet. And then down he came once more, and began the +original exercise of shooting me straight up again. The third time I +went up I heard a stranger say: + +"Oh, don't he buck, though!" + +While I was up, somebody struck the horse a sounding thwack with a +leathern strap, and when I arrived again the Genuine Mexican Plug was not +there. A California youth chased him up and caught him, and asked if he +might have a ride. I granted him that luxury. He mounted the Genuine, +got lifted into the air once, but sent his spurs home as he descended, +and the horse darted away like a telegram. He soared over three fences +like a bird, and disappeared down the road toward the Washoe Valley. + +I sat down on a stone, with a sigh, and by a natural impulse one of my +hands sought my forehead, and the other the base of my stomach. I +believe I never appreciated, till then, the poverty of the human +machinery--for I still needed a hand or two to place elsewhere. Pen +cannot describe how I was jolted up. Imagination cannot conceive how +disjointed I was--how internally, externally and universally I was +unsettled, mixed up and ruptured. There was a sympathetic crowd around +me, though. + +One elderly-looking comforter said: + +"Stranger, you've been taken in. Everybody in this camp knows that +horse. Any child, any Injun, could have told you that he'd buck; he is +the very worst devil to buck on the continent of America. You hear me. +I'm Curry. Old Curry. Old Abe Curry. And moreover, he is a simon-pure, +out-and-out, genuine d--d Mexican plug, and an uncommon mean one at that, +too. Why, you turnip, if you had laid low and kept dark, there's chances +to buy an American horse for mighty little more than you paid for that +bloody old foreign relic." + +I gave no sign; but I made up my mind that if the auctioneer's brother's +funeral took place while I was in the Territory I would postpone all +other recreations and attend it. + +After a gallop of sixteen miles the Californian youth and the Genuine +Mexican Plug came tearing into town again, shedding foam-flakes like the +spume-spray that drives before a typhoon, and, with one final skip over a +wheelbarrow and a Chinaman, cast anchor in front of the "ranch." + +Such panting and blowing! Such spreading and contracting of the red +equine nostrils, and glaring of the wild equine eye! But was the +imperial beast subjugated? Indeed he was not. + +His lordship the Speaker of the House thought he was, and mounted him to +go down to the Capitol; but the first dash the creature made was over a +pile of telegraph poles half as high as a church; and his time to the +Capitol--one mile and three quarters--remains unbeaten to this day. But +then he took an advantage--he left out the mile, and only did the three +quarters. That is to say, he made a straight cut across lots, preferring +fences and ditches to a crooked road; and when the Speaker got to the +Capitol he said he had been in the air so much he felt as if he had made +the trip on a comet. + +In the evening the Speaker came home afoot for exercise, and got the +Genuine towed back behind a quartz wagon. The next day I loaned the +animal to the Clerk of the House to go down to the Dana silver mine, six +miles, and he walked back for exercise, and got the horse towed. +Everybody I loaned him to always walked back; they never could get enough +exercise any other way. + +Still, I continued to loan him to anybody who was willing to borrow him, +my idea being to get him crippled, and throw him on the borrower's hands, +or killed, and make the borrower pay for him. But somehow nothing ever +happened to him. He took chances that no other horse ever took and +survived, but he always came out safe. It was his daily habit to try +experiments that had always before been considered impossible, but he +always got through. Sometimes he miscalculated a little, and did not get +his rider through intact, but he always got through himself. Of course I +had tried to sell him; but that was a stretch of simplicity which met +with little sympathy. The auctioneer stormed up and down the streets on +him for four days, dispersing the populace, interrupting business, and +destroying children, and never got a bid--at least never any but the +eighteen-dollar one he hired a notoriously substanceless bummer to make. +The people only smiled pleasantly, and restrained their desire to buy, if +they had any. Then the auctioneer brought in his bill, and I withdrew +the horse from the market. We tried to trade him off at private vendue +next, offering him at a sacrifice for second-hand tombstones, old iron, +temperance tracts--any kind of property. But holders were stiff, and we +retired from the market again. I never tried to ride the horse any more. +Walking was good enough exercise for a man like me, that had nothing the +matter with him except ruptures, internal injuries, and such things. +Finally I tried to give him away. But it was a failure. Parties said +earthquakes were handy enough on the Pacific coast--they did not wish to +own one. As a last resort I offered him to the Governor for the use of +the "Brigade." His face lit up eagerly at first, but toned down again, +and he said the thing would be too palpable. + +Just then the livery stable man brought in his bill for six weeks' +keeping--stall-room for the horse, fifteen dollars; hay for the horse, +two hundred and fifty! The Genuine Mexican Plug had eaten a ton of the +article, and the man said he would have eaten a hundred if he had let +him. + +I will remark here, in all seriousness, that the regular price of hay +during that year and a part of the next was really two hundred and fifty +dollars a ton. During a part of the previous year it had sold at five +hundred a ton, in gold, and during the winter before that there was such +scarcity of the article that in several instances small quantities had +brought eight hundred dollars a ton in coin! The consequence might be +guessed without my telling it: peopled turned their stock loose to +starve, and before the spring arrived Carson and Eagle valleys were +almost literally carpeted with their carcases! Any old settler there +will verify these statements. + +I managed to pay the livery bill, and that same day I gave the Genuine +Mexican Plug to a passing Arkansas emigrant whom fortune delivered into +my hand. If this ever meets his eye, he will doubtless remember the +donation. + +Now whoever has had the luck to ride a real Mexican plug will recognize +the animal depicted in this chapter, and hardly consider him exaggerated +--but the uninitiated will feel justified in regarding his portrait as a +fancy sketch, perhaps. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +Originally, Nevada was a part of Utah and was called Carson county; and a +pretty large county it was, too. Certain of its valleys produced no end +of hay, and this attracted small colonies of Mormon stock-raisers and +farmers to them. A few orthodox Americans straggled in from California, +but no love was lost between the two classes of colonists. There was +little or no friendly intercourse; each party staid to itself. The +Mormons were largely in the majority, and had the additional advantage of +being peculiarly under the protection of the Mormon government of the +Territory. Therefore they could afford to be distant, and even +peremptory toward their neighbors. One of the traditions of Carson +Valley illustrates the condition of things that prevailed at the time I +speak of. The hired girl of one of the American families was Irish, and +a Catholic; yet it was noted with surprise that she was the only person +outside of the Mormon ring who could get favors from the Mormons. She +asked kindnesses of them often, and always got them. It was a mystery to +everybody. But one day as she was passing out at the door, a large bowie +knife dropped from under her apron, and when her mistress asked for an +explanation she observed that she was going out to "borry a wash-tub from +the Mormons!" + +In 1858 silver lodes were discovered in "Carson County," and then the +aspect of things changed. Californians began to flock in, and the +American element was soon in the majority. Allegiance to Brigham Young +and Utah was renounced, and a temporary territorial government for +"Washoe" was instituted by the citizens. Governor Roop was the first and +only chief magistrate of it. In due course of time Congress passed a +bill to organize "Nevada Territory," and President Lincoln sent out +Governor Nye to supplant Roop. + +At this time the population of the Territory was about twelve or fifteen +thousand, and rapidly increasing. Silver mines were being vigorously +developed and silver mills erected. Business of all kinds was active and +prosperous and growing more so day by day. + +The people were glad to have a legitimately constituted government, but +did not particularly enjoy having strangers from distant States put in +authority over them--a sentiment that was natural enough. They thought +the officials should have been chosen from among themselves from among +prominent citizens who had earned a right to such promotion, and who +would be in sympathy with the populace and likewise thoroughly acquainted +with the needs of the Territory. They were right in viewing the matter +thus, without doubt. The new officers were "emigrants," and that was no +title to anybody's affection or admiration either. + +The new government was received with considerable coolness. It was not +only a foreign intruder, but a poor one. It was not even worth plucking +--except by the smallest of small fry office-seekers and such. Everybody +knew that Congress had appropriated only twenty thousand dollars a year +in greenbacks for its support--about money enough to run a quartz mill a +month. And everybody knew, also, that the first year's money was still +in Washington, and that the getting hold of it would be a tedious and +difficult process. Carson City was too wary and too wise to open up a +credit account with the imported bantling with anything like indecent +haste. + +There is something solemnly funny about the struggles of a new-born +Territorial government to get a start in this world. Ours had a trying +time of it. The Organic Act and the "instructions" from the State +Department commanded that a legislature should be elected at +such-and-such a time, and its sittings inaugurated at such-and-such a +date. It was easy to get legislators, even at three dollars a day, +although board was four dollars and fifty cents, for distinction has its +charm in Nevada as well as elsewhere, and there were plenty of patriotic +souls out of employment; but to get a legislative hall for them to meet +in was another matter altogether. Carson blandly declined to give a room +rent-free, or let one to the government on credit. + +But when Curry heard of the difficulty, he came forward, solitary and +alone, and shouldered the Ship of State over the bar and got her afloat +again. I refer to "Curry--Old Curry--Old Abe Curry." But for him the +legislature would have been obliged to sit in the desert. He offered his +large stone building just outside the capital limits, rent-free, and it +was gladly accepted. Then he built a horse-railroad from town to the +capitol, and carried the legislators gratis. + +He also furnished pine benches and chairs for the legislature, and +covered the floors with clean saw-dust by way of carpet and spittoon +combined. But for Curry the government would have died in its tender +infancy. A canvas partition to separate the Senate from the House of +Representatives was put up by the Secretary, at a cost of three dollars +and forty cents, but the United States declined to pay for it. Upon +being reminded that the "instructions" permitted the payment of a liberal +rent for a legislative hall, and that that money was saved to the country +by Mr. Curry's generosity, the United States said that did not alter the +matter, and the three dollars and forty cents would be subtracted from +the Secretary's eighteen hundred dollar salary--and it was! + +The matter of printing was from the beginning an interesting feature of +the new government's difficulties. The Secretary was sworn to obey his +volume of written "instructions," and these commanded him to do two +certain things without fail, viz.: + +1. Get the House and Senate journals printed; and, +2. For this work, pay one dollar and fifty cents per "thousand" for +composition, and one dollar and fifty cents per "token" for press-work, +in greenbacks. + +It was easy to swear to do these two things, but it was entirely +impossible to do more than one of them. When greenbacks had gone down to +forty cents on the dollar, the prices regularly charged everybody by +printing establishments were one dollar and fifty cents per "thousand" +and one dollar and fifty cents per "token," in gold. The "instructions" +commanded that the Secretary regard a paper dollar issued by the +government as equal to any other dollar issued by the government. Hence +the printing of the journals was discontinued. Then the United States +sternly rebuked the Secretary for disregarding the "instructions," and +warned him to correct his ways. Wherefore he got some printing done, +forwarded the bill to Washington with full exhibits of the high prices of +things in the Territory, and called attention to a printed market report +wherein it would be observed that even hay was two hundred and fifty +dollars a ton. The United States responded by subtracting the +printing-bill from the Secretary's suffering salary--and moreover +remarked with dense gravity that he would find nothing in his +"instructions" requiring him to purchase hay! + +Nothing in this world is palled in such impenetrable obscurity as a U.S. +Treasury Comptroller's understanding. The very fires of the hereafter +could get up nothing more than a fitful glimmer in it. In the days I +speak of he never could be made to comprehend why it was that twenty +thousand dollars would not go as far in Nevada, where all commodities +ranged at an enormous figure, as it would in the other Territories, where +exceeding cheapness was the rule. He was an officer who looked out for +the little expenses all the time. The Secretary of the Territory kept +his office in his bedroom, as I before remarked; and he charged the +United States no rent, although his "instructions" provided for that item +and he could have justly taken advantage of it (a thing which I would +have done with more than lightning promptness if I had been Secretary +myself). But the United States never applauded this devotion. Indeed, I +think my country was ashamed to have so improvident a person in its +employ. + +Those "instructions" (we used to read a chapter from them every morning, +as intellectual gymnastics, and a couple of chapters in Sunday school +every Sabbath, for they treated of all subjects under the sun and had +much valuable religious matter in them along with the other statistics) +those "instructions" commanded that pen-knives, envelopes, pens and +writing-paper be furnished the members of the legislature. So the +Secretary made the purchase and the distribution. The knives cost three +dollars apiece. There was one too many, and the Secretary gave it to the +Clerk of the House of Representatives. The United States said the Clerk +of the House was not a "member" of the legislature, and took that three +dollars out of the Secretary's salary, as usual. + +White men charged three or four dollars a "load" for sawing up +stove-wood. The Secretary was sagacious enough to know that the United +States would never pay any such price as that; so he got an Indian to saw +up a load of office wood at one dollar and a half. He made out the usual +voucher, but signed no name to it--simply appended a note explaining that +an Indian had done the work, and had done it in a very capable and +satisfactory way, but could not sign the voucher owing to lack of ability +in the necessary direction. The Secretary had to pay that dollar and a +half. He thought the United States would admire both his economy and his +honesty in getting the work done at half price and not putting a +pretended Indian's signature to the voucher, but the United States did +not see it in that light. + +The United States was too much accustomed to employing dollar-and-a-half +thieves in all manner of official capacities to regard his explanation of +the voucher as having any foundation in fact. + +But the next time the Indian sawed wood for us I taught him to make a +cross at the bottom of the voucher--it looked like a cross that had been +drunk a year--and then I "witnessed" it and it went through all right. +The United States never said a word. I was sorry I had not made the +voucher for a thousand loads of wood instead of one. + +The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic +villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable +pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two. + +That was a fine collection of sovereigns, that first Nevada legislature. +They levied taxes to the amount of thirty or forty thousand dollars and +ordered expenditures to the extent of about a million. Yet they had +their little periodical explosions of economy like all other bodies of +the kind. A member proposed to save three dollars a day to the nation by +dispensing with the Chaplain. And yet that short-sighted man needed the +Chaplain more than any other member, perhaps, for he generally sat with +his feet on his desk, eating raw turnips, during the morning prayer. + +The legislature sat sixty days, and passed private tollroad franchises +all the time. When they adjourned it was estimated that every citizen +owned about three franchises, and it was believed that unless Congress +gave the Territory another degree of longitude there would not be room +enough to accommodate the toll-roads. The ends of them were hanging over +the boundary line everywhere like a fringe. + +The fact is, the freighting business had grown to such important +proportions that there was nearly as much excitement over suddenly +acquired toll-road fortunes as over the wonderful silver mines. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +By and by I was smitten with the silver fever. "Prospecting parties" +were leaving for the mountains every day, and discovering and taking +possession of rich silver-bearing lodes and ledges of quartz. Plainly +this was the road to fortune. The great "Gould and Curry" mine was held +at three or four hundred dollars a foot when we arrived; but in two +months it had sprung up to eight hundred. The "Ophir" had been worth +only a mere trifle, a year gone by, and now it was selling at nearly four +thousand dollars a foot! Not a mine could be named that had not +experienced an astonishing advance in value within a short time. +Everybody was talking about these marvels. Go where you would, you heard +nothing else, from morning till far into the night. Tom So-and-So had +sold out of the "Amanda Smith" for $40,000--hadn't a cent when he "took +up" the ledge six months ago. John Jones had sold half his interest in +the "Bald Eagle and Mary Ann" for $65,000, gold coin, and gone to the +States for his family. The widow Brewster had "struck it rich" in the +"Golden Fleece" and sold ten feet for $18,000--hadn't money enough to buy +a crape bonnet when Sing-Sing Tommy killed her husband at Baldy Johnson's +wake last spring. The "Last Chance" had found a "clay casing" and knew +they were "right on the ledge"--consequence, "feet" that went begging +yesterday were worth a brick house apiece to-day, and seedy owners who +could not get trusted for a drink at any bar in the country yesterday +were roaring drunk on champagne to-day and had hosts of warm personal +friends in a town where they had forgotten how to bow or shake hands from +long-continued want of practice. Johnny Morgan, a common loafer, had +gone to sleep in the gutter and waked up worth a hundred thousand +dollars, in consequence of the decision in the "Lady Franklin and Rough +and Ready" lawsuit. And so on--day in and day out the talk pelted our +ears and the excitement waxed hotter and hotter around us. + +I would have been more or less than human if I had not gone mad like the +rest. Cart-loads of solid silver bricks, as large as pigs of lead, were +arriving from the mills every day, and such sights as that gave substance +to the wild talk about me. I succumbed and grew as frenzied as the +craziest. + +Every few days news would come of the discovery of a bran-new mining +region; immediately the papers would teem with accounts of its richness, +and away the surplus population would scamper to take possession. By the +time I was fairly inoculated with the disease, "Esmeralda" had just had a +run and "Humboldt" was beginning to shriek for attention. "Humboldt! +Humboldt!" was the new cry, and straightway Humboldt, the newest of the +new, the richest of the rich, the most marvellous of the marvellous +discoveries in silver-land was occupying two columns of the public prints +to "Esmeralda's" one. I was just on the point of starting to Esmeralda, +but turned with the tide and got ready for Humboldt. That the reader may +see what moved me, and what would as surely have moved him had he been +there, I insert here one of the newspaper letters of the day. It and +several other letters from the same calm hand were the main means of +converting me. I shall not garble the extract, but put it in just as it +appeared in the Daily Territorial Enterprise: + + But what about our mines? I shall be candid with you. I shall + express an honest opinion, based upon a thorough examination. + Humboldt county is the richest mineral region upon God's footstool. + Each mountain range is gorged with the precious ores. Humboldt is + the true Golconda. + + The other day an assay of mere croppings yielded exceeding four + thousand dollars to the ton. A week or two ago an assay of just + such surface developments made returns of seven thousand dollars to + the ton. Our mountains are full of rambling prospectors. Each day + and almost every hour reveals new and more startling evidences of + the profuse and intensified wealth of our favored county. The metal + is not silver alone. There are distinct ledges of auriferous ore. + A late discovery plainly evinces cinnabar. The coarser metals are + in gross abundance. Lately evidences of bituminous coal have been + detected. My theory has ever been that coal is a ligneous + formation. I told Col. Whitman, in times past, that the + neighborhood of Dayton (Nevada) betrayed no present or previous + manifestations of a ligneous foundation, and that hence I had no + confidence in his lauded coal mines. I repeated the same doctrine + to the exultant coal discoverers of Humboldt. I talked with my + friend Captain Burch on the subject. My pyrhanism vanished upon his + statement that in the very region referred to he had seen petrified + trees of the length of two hundred feet. Then is the fact + established that huge forests once cast their grim shadows over this + remote section. I am firm in the coal faith. + + Have no fears of the mineral resources of Humboldt county. They are + immense--incalculable. + +Let me state one or two things which will help the reader to better +comprehend certain items in the above. At this time, our near neighbor, +Gold Hill, was the most successful silver mining locality in Nevada. It +was from there that more than half the daily shipments of silver bricks +came. "Very rich" (and scarce) Gold Hill ore yielded from $100 to $400 +to the ton; but the usual yield was only $20 to $40 per ton--that is to +say, each hundred pounds of ore yielded from one dollar to two dollars. +But the reader will perceive by the above extract, that in Humboldt from +one fourth to nearly half the mass was silver! That is to say, every one +hundred pounds of the ore had from two hundred dollars up to about three +hundred and fifty in it. Some days later this same correspondent wrote: + + I have spoken of the vast and almost fabulous wealth of this + region--it is incredible. The intestines of our mountains are + gorged with precious ore to plethora. I have said that nature + has so shaped our mountains as to furnish most excellent + facilities for the working of our mines. I have also told you + that the country about here is pregnant with the finest mill + sites in the world. But what is the mining history of Humboldt? + The Sheba mine is in the hands of energetic San Francisco + capitalists. It would seem that the ore is combined with metals + that render it difficult of reduction with our imperfect mountain + machinery. The proprietors have combined the capital and labor + hinted at in my exordium. They are toiling and probing. Their + tunnel has reached the length of one hundred feet. From primal + assays alone, coupled with the development of the mine and public + confidence in the continuance of effort, the stock had reared + itself to eight hundred dollars market value. I do not know that + one ton of the ore has been converted into current metal. I do + know that there are many lodes in this section that surpass the + Sheba in primal assay value. Listen a moment to the calculations + of the Sheba operators. They purpose transporting the ore + concentrated to Europe. The conveyance from Star City (its + locality) to Virginia City will cost seventy dollars per ton; + from Virginia to San Francisco, forty dollars per ton; from + thence to Liverpool, its destination, ten dollars per ton. Their + idea is that its conglomerate metals will reimburse them their + cost of original extraction, the price of transportation, and the + expense of reduction, and that then a ton of the raw ore will net + them twelve hundred dollars. The estimate may be extravagant. + Cut it in twain, and the product is enormous, far transcending + any previous developments of our racy Territory. + + A very common calculation is that many of our mines will yield + five hundred dollars to the ton. Such fecundity throws the Gould + & Curry, the Ophir and the Mexican, of your neighborhood, in the + darkest shadow. I have given you the estimate of the value of a + single developed mine. Its richness is indexed by its market + valuation. The people of Humboldt county are feet crazy. As I + write, our towns are near deserted. They look as languid as a + consumptive girl. What has become of our sinewy and athletic + fellow-citizens? They are coursing through ravines and over + mountain tops. Their tracks are visible in every direction. + Occasionally a horseman will dash among us. His steed betrays + hard usage. He alights before his adobe dwelling, hastily + exchanges courtesies with his townsmen, hurries to an assay + office and from thence to the District Recorder's. In the + morning, having renewed his provisional supplies, he is off again + on his wild and unbeaten route. Why, the fellow numbers already + his feet by the thousands. He is the horse-leech. He has the + craving stomach of the shark or anaconda. He would conquer + metallic worlds. + +This was enough. The instant we had finished reading the above article, +four of us decided to go to Humboldt. We commenced getting ready at +once. And we also commenced upbraiding ourselves for not deciding +sooner--for we were in terror lest all the rich mines would be found and +secured before we got there, and we might have to put up with ledges that +would not yield more than two or three hundred dollars a ton, maybe. An +hour before, I would have felt opulent if I had owned ten feet in a Gold +Hill mine whose ore produced twenty-five dollars to the ton; now I was +already annoyed at the prospect of having to put up with mines the +poorest of which would be a marvel in Gold Hill. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +Hurry, was the word! We wasted no time. Our party consisted of four +persons--a blacksmith sixty years of age, two young lawyers, and myself. +We bought a wagon and two miserable old horses. We put eighteen hundred +pounds of provisions and mining tools in the wagon and drove out of +Carson on a chilly December afternoon. The horses were so weak and old +that we soon found that it would be better if one or two of us got out +and walked. It was an improvement. Next, we found that it would be +better if a third man got out. That was an improvement also. It was at +this time that I volunteered to drive, although I had never driven a +harnessed horse before and many a man in such a position would have felt +fairly excused from such a responsibility. But in a little while it was +found that it would be a fine thing if the drive got out and walked also. +It was at this time that I resigned the position of driver, and never +resumed it again. Within the hour, we found that it would not only be +better, but was absolutely necessary, that we four, taking turns, two at +a time, should put our hands against the end of the wagon and push it +through the sand, leaving the feeble horses little to do but keep out of +the way and hold up the tongue. Perhaps it is well for one to know his +fate at first, and get reconciled to it. We had learned ours in one +afternoon. It was plain that we had to walk through the sand and shove +that wagon and those horses two hundred miles. So we accepted the +situation, and from that time forth we never rode. More than that, we +stood regular and nearly constant watches pushing up behind. + +We made seven miles, and camped in the desert. Young Clagett (now member +of Congress from Montana) unharnessed and fed and watered the horses; +Oliphant and I cut sagebrush, built the fire and brought water to cook +with; and old Mr. Ballou the blacksmith did the cooking. This division +of labor, and this appointment, was adhered to throughout the journey. +We had no tent, and so we slept under our blankets in the open plain. We +were so tired that we slept soundly. + +We were fifteen days making the trip--two hundred miles; thirteen, +rather, for we lay by a couple of days, in one place, to let the horses +rest. + +We could really have accomplished the journey in ten days if we had towed +the horses behind the wagon, but we did not think of that until it was +too late, and so went on shoving the horses and the wagon too when we +might have saved half the labor. Parties who met us, occasionally, +advised us to put the horses in the wagon, but Mr. Ballou, through whose +iron-clad earnestness no sarcasm could pierce, said that that would not +do, because the provisions were exposed and would suffer, the horses +being "bituminous from long deprivation." The reader will excuse me from +translating. What Mr. Ballou customarily meant, when he used a long +word, was a secret between himself and his Maker. He was one of the best +and kindest hearted men that ever graced a humble sphere of life. He was +gentleness and simplicity itself--and unselfishness, too. Although he +was more than twice as old as the eldest of us, he never gave himself any +airs, privileges, or exemptions on that account. He did a young man's +share of the work; and did his share of conversing and entertaining from +the general stand-point of any age--not from the arrogant, overawing +summit-height of sixty years. His one striking peculiarity was his +Partingtonian fashion of loving and using big words for their own sakes, +and independent of any bearing they might have upon the thought he was +purposing to convey. He always let his ponderous syllables fall with an +easy unconsciousness that left them wholly without offensiveness. +In truth his air was so natural and so simple that one was always +catching himself accepting his stately sentences as meaning something, +when they really meant nothing in the world. If a word was long and +grand and resonant, that was sufficient to win the old man's love, and he +would drop that word into the most out-of-the-way place in a sentence or +a subject, and be as pleased with it as if it were perfectly luminous +with meaning. + +We four always spread our common stock of blankets together on the frozen +ground, and slept side by side; and finding that our foolish, long-legged +hound pup had a deal of animal heat in him, Oliphant got to admitting him +to the bed, between himself and Mr. Ballou, hugging the dog's warm back +to his breast and finding great comfort in it. But in the night the pup +would get stretchy and brace his feet against the old man's back and +shove, grunting complacently the while; and now and then, being warm and +snug, grateful and happy, he would paw the old man's back simply in +excess of comfort; and at yet other times he would dream of the chase and +in his sleep tug at the old man's back hair and bark in his ear. The old +gentleman complained mildly about these familiarities, at last, and when +he got through with his statement he said that such a dog as that was not +a proper animal to admit to bed with tired men, because he was "so +meretricious in his movements and so organic in his emotions." We turned +the dog out. + +It was a hard, wearing, toilsome journey, but it had its bright side; for +after each day was done and our wolfish hunger appeased with a hot supper +of fried bacon, bread, molasses and black coffee, the pipe-smoking, +song-singing and yarn-spinning around the evening camp-fire in the still +solitudes of the desert was a happy, care-free sort of recreation that +seemed the very summit and culmination of earthly luxury. + +It is a kind of life that has a potent charm for all men, whether city or +country-bred. We are descended from desert-lounging Arabs, and countless +ages of growth toward perfect civilization have failed to root out of us +the nomadic instinct. We all confess to a gratified thrill at the +thought of "camping out." + +Once we made twenty-five miles in a day, and once we made forty miles +(through the Great American Desert), and ten miles beyond--fifty in all +--in twenty-three hours, without halting to eat, drink or rest. To stretch +out and go to sleep, even on stony and frozen ground, after pushing a +wagon and two horses fifty miles, is a delight so supreme that for the +moment it almost seems cheap at the price. + +We camped two days in the neighborhood of the "Sink of the Humboldt." +We tried to use the strong alkaline water of the Sink, but it would not +answer. It was like drinking lye, and not weak lye, either. It left a +taste in the mouth, bitter and every way execrable, and a burning in the +stomach that was very uncomfortable. We put molasses in it, but that +helped it very little; we added a pickle, yet the alkali was the +prominent taste and so it was unfit for drinking. + +The coffee we made of this water was the meanest compound man has yet +invented. It was really viler to the taste than the unameliorated water +itself. Mr. Ballou, being the architect and builder of the beverage felt +constrained to endorse and uphold it, and so drank half a cup, by little +sips, making shift to praise it faintly the while, but finally threw out +the remainder, and said frankly it was "too technical for him." + +But presently we found a spring of fresh water, convenient, and then, +with nothing to mar our enjoyment, and no stragglers to interrupt it, we +entered into our rest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +After leaving the Sink, we traveled along the Humboldt river a little +way. People accustomed to the monster mile-wide Mississippi, grow +accustomed to associating the term "river" with a high degree of watery +grandeur. Consequently, such people feel rather disappointed when they +stand on the shores of the Humboldt or the Carson and find that a "river" +in Nevada is a sickly rivulet which is just the counterpart of the Erie +canal in all respects save that the canal is twice as long and four times +as deep. One of the pleasantest and most invigorating exercises one can +contrive is to run and jump across the Humboldt river till he is +overheated, and then drink it dry. + +On the fifteenth day we completed our march of two hundred miles and +entered Unionville, Humboldt county, in the midst of a driving +snow-storm. Unionville consisted of eleven cabins and a liberty-pole. +Six of the cabins were strung along one side of a deep canyon, and the +other five faced them. The rest of the landscape was made up of bleak +mountain walls that rose so high into the sky from both sides of the +canyon that the village was left, as it were, far down in the bottom of a +crevice. It was always daylight on the mountain tops a long time before +the darkness lifted and revealed Unionville. + +We built a small, rude cabin in the side of the crevice and roofed it +with canvas, leaving a corner open to serve as a chimney, through which +the cattle used to tumble occasionally, at night, and mash our furniture +and interrupt our sleep. It was very cold weather and fuel was scarce. +Indians brought brush and bushes several miles on their backs; and when +we could catch a laden Indian it was well--and when we could not (which +was the rule, not the exception), we shivered and bore it. + +I confess, without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver lying +all about the ground. I expected to see it glittering in the sun on the +mountain summits. I said nothing about this, for some instinct told me +that I might possibly have an exaggerated idea about it, and so if I +betrayed my thought I might bring derision upon myself. Yet I was as +perfectly satisfied in my own mind as I could be of anything, that I was +going to gather up, in a day or two, or at furthest a week or two, silver +enough to make me satisfactorily wealthy--and so my fancy was already +busy with plans for spending this money. The first opportunity that +offered, I sauntered carelessly away from the cabin, keeping an eye on +the other boys, and stopping and contemplating the sky when they seemed +to be observing me; but as soon as the coast was manifestly clear, I fled +away as guiltily as a thief might have done and never halted till I was +far beyond sight and call. Then I began my search with a feverish +excitement that was brimful of expectation--almost of certainty. +I crawled about the ground, seizing and examining bits of stone, blowing +the dust from them or rubbing them on my clothes, and then peering at +them with anxious hope. Presently I found a bright fragment and my heart +bounded! I hid behind a boulder and polished it and scrutinized it with +a nervous eagerness and a delight that was more pronounced than absolute +certainty itself could have afforded. The more I examined the fragment +the more I was convinced that I had found the door to fortune. I marked +the spot and carried away my specimen. Up and down the rugged mountain +side I searched, with always increasing interest and always augmenting +gratitude that I had come to Humboldt and come in time. Of all the +experiences of my life, this secret search among the hidden treasures of +silver-land was the nearest to unmarred ecstasy. It was a delirious +revel. + +By and by, in the bed of a shallow rivulet, I found a deposit of shining +yellow scales, and my breath almost forsook me! A gold mine, and in my +simplicity I had been content with vulgar silver! I was so excited that +I half believed my overwrought imagination was deceiving me. Then a fear +came upon me that people might be observing me and would guess my secret. +Moved by this thought, I made a circuit of the place, and ascended a +knoll to reconnoiter. Solitude. No creature was near. Then I returned +to my mine, fortifying myself against possible disappointment, but my +fears were groundless--the shining scales were still there. I set about +scooping them out, and for an hour I toiled down the windings of the +stream and robbed its bed. But at last the descending sun warned me to +give up the quest, and I turned homeward laden with wealth. As I walked +along I could not help smiling at the thought of my being so excited over +my fragment of silver when a nobler metal was almost under my nose. In +this little time the former had so fallen in my estimation that once or +twice I was on the point of throwing it away. + +The boys were as hungry as usual, but I could eat nothing. Neither could +I talk. I was full of dreams and far away. Their conversation +interrupted the flow of my fancy somewhat, and annoyed me a little, too. +I despised the sordid and commonplace things they talked about. But as +they proceeded, it began to amuse me. It grew to be rare fun to hear +them planning their poor little economies and sighing over possible +privations and distresses when a gold mine, all our own, lay within sight +of the cabin and I could point it out at any moment. Smothered hilarity +began to oppress me, presently. It was hard to resist the impulse to +burst out with exultation and reveal everything; but I did resist. I +said within myself that I would filter the great news through my lips +calmly and be serene as a summer morning while I watched its effect in +their faces. I said: + +"Where have you all been?" + +"Prospecting." + +"What did you find?" + +"Nothing." + +"Nothing? What do you think of the country?" + +"Can't tell, yet," said Mr. Ballou, who was an old gold miner, and had +likewise had considerable experience among the silver mines. + +"Well, haven't you formed any sort of opinion?" + +"Yes, a sort of a one. It's fair enough here, may be, but overrated. +Seven thousand dollar ledges are scarce, though. + +"That Sheba may be rich enough, but we don't own it; and besides, the rock +is so full of base metals that all the science in the world can't work +it. We'll not starve, here, but we'll not get rich, I'm afraid." + +"So you think the prospect is pretty poor?" + +"No name for it!" + +"Well, we'd better go back, hadn't we?" + +"Oh, not yet--of course not. We'll try it a riffle, first." + +"Suppose, now--this is merely a supposition, you know--suppose you could +find a ledge that would yield, say, a hundred and fifty dollars a ton +--would that satisfy you?" + +"Try us once!" from the whole party. + +"Or suppose--merely a supposition, of course--suppose you were to find a +ledge that would yield two thousand dollars a ton--would that satisfy +you?" + +"Here--what do you mean? What are you coming at? Is there some mystery +behind all this?" + +"Never mind. I am not saying anything. You know perfectly well there +are no rich mines here--of course you do. Because you have been around +and examined for yourselves. Anybody would know that, that had been +around. But just for the sake of argument, suppose--in a kind of general +way--suppose some person were to tell you that two-thousand-dollar ledges +were simply contemptible--contemptible, understand--and that right yonder +in sight of this very cabin there were piles of pure gold and pure +silver--oceans of it--enough to make you all rich in twenty-four hours! +Come!" + +"I should say he was as crazy as a loon!" said old Ballou, but wild with +excitement, nevertheless. + +"Gentlemen," said I, "I don't say anything--I haven't been around, you +know, and of course don't know anything--but all I ask of you is to cast +your eye on that, for instance, and tell me what you think of it!" and I +tossed my treasure before them. + +There was an eager scramble for it, and a closing of heads together over +it under the candle-light. Then old Ballou said: + +"Think of it? I think it is nothing but a lot of granite rubbish and +nasty glittering mica that isn't worth ten cents an acre!" + +So vanished my dream. So melted my wealth away. So toppled my airy +castle to the earth and left me stricken and forlorn. + +Moralizing, I observed, then, that "all that glitters is not gold." + +Mr. Ballou said I could go further than that, and lay it up among my +treasures of knowledge, that nothing that glitters is gold. So I learned +then, once for all, that gold in its native state is but dull, +unornamental stuff, and that only low-born metals excite the admiration +of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of +the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of +mica. Commonplace human nature cannot rise above that. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +True knowledge of the nature of silver mining came fast enough. We went +out "prospecting" with Mr. Ballou. We climbed the mountain sides, and +clambered among sage-brush, rocks and snow till we were ready to drop +with exhaustion, but found no silver--nor yet any gold. Day after day we +did this. Now and then we came upon holes burrowed a few feet into the +declivities and apparently abandoned; and now and then we found one or +two listless men still burrowing. But there was no appearance of silver. +These holes were the beginnings of tunnels, and the purpose was to drive +them hundreds of feet into the mountain, and some day tap the hidden +ledge where the silver was. Some day! It seemed far enough away, and +very hopeless and dreary. Day after day we toiled, and climbed and +searched, and we younger partners grew sicker and still sicker of the +promiseless toil. At last we halted under a beetling rampart of rock +which projected from the earth high upon the mountain. Mr. Ballou broke +off some fragments with a hammer, and examined them long and attentively +with a small eye-glass; threw them away and broke off more; said this +rock was quartz, and quartz was the sort of rock that contained silver. +Contained it! I had thought that at least it would be caked on the +outside of it like a kind of veneering. He still broke off pieces and +critically examined them, now and then wetting the piece with his tongue +and applying the glass. At last he exclaimed: + +"We've got it!" + +We were full of anxiety in a moment. The rock was clean and white, where +it was broken, and across it ran a ragged thread of blue. He said that +that little thread had silver in it, mixed with base metal, such as lead +and antimony, and other rubbish, and that there was a speck or two of +gold visible. After a great deal of effort we managed to discern some +little fine yellow specks, and judged that a couple of tons of them +massed together might make a gold dollar, possibly. We were not +jubilant, but Mr. Ballou said there were worse ledges in the world than +that. He saved what he called the "richest" piece of the rock, in order +to determine its value by the process called the "fire-assay." Then we +named the mine "Monarch of the Mountains" (modesty of nomenclature is not +a prominent feature in the mines), and Mr. Ballou wrote out and stuck up +the following "notice," preserving a copy to be entered upon the books in +the mining recorder's office in the town. + + "NOTICE." + + "We the undersigned claim three claims, of three hundred feet each + (and one for discovery), on this silver-bearing quartz lead or lode, + extending north and south from this notice, with all its dips, + spurs, and angles, variations and sinuosities, together with fifty + feet of ground on either side for working the same." + +We put our names to it and tried to feel that our fortunes were made. +But when we talked the matter all over with Mr. Ballou, we felt depressed +and dubious. He said that this surface quartz was not all there was of +our mine; but that the wall or ledge of rock called the "Monarch of the +Mountains," extended down hundreds and hundreds of feet into the earth +--he illustrated by saying it was like a curb-stone, and maintained a +nearly uniform thickness-say twenty feet--away down into the bowels of +the earth, and was perfectly distinct from the casing rock on each side +of it; and that it kept to itself, and maintained its distinctive +character always, no matter how deep it extended into the earth or how +far it stretched itself through and across the hills and valleys. He +said it might be a mile deep and ten miles long, for all we knew; and +that wherever we bored into it above ground or below, we would find gold +and silver in it, but no gold or silver in the meaner rock it was cased +between. And he said that down in the great depths of the ledge was its +richness, and the deeper it went the richer it grew. Therefore, instead +of working here on the surface, we must either bore down into the rock +with a shaft till we came to where it was rich--say a hundred feet or so +--or else we must go down into the valley and bore a long tunnel into the +mountain side and tap the ledge far under the earth. To do either was +plainly the labor of months; for we could blast and bore only a few feet +a day--some five or six. But this was not all. He said that after we +got the ore out it must be hauled in wagons to a distant silver-mill, +ground up, and the silver extracted by a tedious and costly process. Our +fortune seemed a century away! + +But we went to work. We decided to sink a shaft. So, for a week we +climbed the mountain, laden with picks, drills, gads, crowbars, shovels, +cans of blasting powder and coils of fuse and strove with might and main. +At first the rock was broken and loose and we dug it up with picks and +threw it out with shovels, and the hole progressed very well. But the +rock became more compact, presently, and gads and crowbars came into +play. But shortly nothing could make an impression but blasting powder. + +That was the weariest work! One of us held the iron drill in its place +and another would strike with an eight-pound sledge--it was like driving +nails on a large scale. In the course of an hour or two the drill would +reach a depth of two or three feet, making a hole a couple of inches in +diameter. We would put in a charge of powder, insert half a yard of +fuse, pour in sand and gravel and ram it down, then light the fuse and +run. When the explosion came and the rocks and smoke shot into the air, +we would go back and find about a bushel of that hard, rebellious quartz +jolted out. Nothing more. One week of this satisfied me. I resigned. +Clagget and Oliphant followed. Our shaft was only twelve feet deep. We +decided that a tunnel was the thing we wanted. + +So we went down the mountain side and worked a week; at the end of which +time we had blasted a tunnel about deep enough to hide a hogshead in, and +judged that about nine hundred feet more of it would reach the ledge. +I resigned again, and the other boys only held out one day longer. +We decided that a tunnel was not what we wanted. We wanted a ledge that +was already "developed." There were none in the camp. + +We dropped the "Monarch" for the time being. + +Meantime the camp was filling up with people, and there was a constantly +growing excitement about our Humboldt mines. We fell victims to the +epidemic and strained every nerve to acquire more "feet." We prospected +and took up new claims, put "notices" on them and gave them grandiloquent +names. We traded some of our "feet" for "feet" in other people's claims. +In a little while we owned largely in the "Gray Eagle," the "Columbiana," +the "Branch Mint," the "Maria Jane," the "Universe," the +"Root-Hog-or-Die," the "Samson and Delilah," the "Treasure Trove," the +"Golconda," the "Sultana," the "Boomerang," the "Great Republic," the +"Grand Mogul," and fifty other "mines" that had never been molested by a +shovel or scratched with a pick. We had not less than thirty thousand +"feet" apiece in the "richest mines on earth" as the frenzied cant +phrased it--and were in debt to the butcher. We were stark mad with +excitement--drunk with happiness--smothered under mountains of +prospective wealth--arrogantly compassionate toward the plodding millions +who knew not our marvellous canyon--but our credit was not good at the +grocer's. + +It was the strangest phase of life one can imagine. It was a beggars' +revel. There was nothing doing in the district--no mining--no milling +--no productive effort--no income--and not enough money in the entire camp +to buy a corner lot in an eastern village, hardly; and yet a stranger +would have supposed he was walking among bloated millionaires. +Prospecting parties swarmed out of town with the first flush of dawn, and +swarmed in again at nightfall laden with spoil--rocks. Nothing but +rocks. Every man's pockets were full of them; the floor of his cabin was +littered with them; they were disposed in labeled rows on his shelves. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +I met men at every turn who owned from one thousand to thirty thousand +"feet" in undeveloped silver mines, every single foot of which they +believed would shortly be worth from fifty to a thousand dollars--and as +often as any other way they were men who had not twenty-five dollars in +the world. Every man you met had his new mine to boast of, and his +"specimens" ready; and if the opportunity offered, he would infallibly +back you into a corner and offer as a favor to you, not to him, to part +with just a few feet in the "Golden Age," or the "Sarah Jane," or some +other unknown stack of croppings, for money enough to get a "square meal" +with, as the phrase went. And you were never to reveal that he had made +you the offer at such a ruinous price, for it was only out of friendship +for you that he was willing to make the sacrifice. Then he would fish a +piece of rock out of his pocket, and after looking mysteriously around as +if he feared he might be waylaid and robbed if caught with such wealth in +his possession, he would dab the rock against his tongue, clap an +eyeglass to it, and exclaim: + +"Look at that! Right there in that red dirt! See it? See the specks of +gold? And the streak of silver? That's from the Uncle Abe. There's a +hundred thousand tons like that in sight! Right in sight, mind you! +And when we get down on it and the ledge comes in solid, it will be the +richest thing in the world! Look at the assay! I don't want you to +believe me--look at the assay!" + +Then he would get out a greasy sheet of paper which showed that the +portion of rock assayed had given evidence of containing silver and gold +in the proportion of so many hundreds or thousands of dollars to the ton. + + +I little knew, then, that the custom was to hunt out the richest piece of +rock and get it assayed! Very often, that piece, the size of a filbert, +was the only fragment in a ton that had a particle of metal in it--and +yet the assay made it pretend to represent the average value of the ton +of rubbish it came from! + +On such a system of assaying as that, the Humboldt world had gone crazy. +On the authority of such assays its newspaper correspondents were +frothing about rock worth four and seven thousand dollars a ton! + +And does the reader remember, a few pages back, the calculations, of a +quoted correspondent, whereby the ore is to be mined and shipped all the +way to England, the metals extracted, and the gold and silver contents +received back by the miners as clear profit, the copper, antimony and +other things in the ore being sufficient to pay all the expenses +incurred? Everybody's head was full of such "calculations" as those +--such raving insanity, rather. Few people took work into their +calculations--or outlay of money either; except the work and expenditures +of other people. + +We never touched our tunnel or our shaft again. Why? Because we judged +that we had learned the real secret of success in silver mining--which +was, not to mine the silver ourselves by the sweat of our brows and the +labor of our hands, but to sell the ledges to the dull slaves of toil and +let them do the mining! + +Before leaving Carson, the Secretary and I had purchased "feet" from +various Esmeralda stragglers. We had expected immediate returns of +bullion, but were only afflicted with regular and constant "assessments" +instead--demands for money wherewith to develop the said mines. These +assessments had grown so oppressive that it seemed necessary to look into +the matter personally. Therefore I projected a pilgrimage to Carson and +thence to Esmeralda. I bought a horse and started, in company with +Mr. Ballou and a gentleman named Ollendorff, a Prussian--not the party +who has inflicted so much suffering on the world with his wretched +foreign grammars, with their interminable repetitions of questions which +never have occurred and are never likely to occur in any conversation +among human beings. We rode through a snow-storm for two or three days, +and arrived at "Honey Lake Smith's," a sort of isolated inn on the Carson +river. It was a two-story log house situated on a small knoll in the +midst of the vast basin or desert through which the sickly Carson winds +its melancholy way. Close to the house were the Overland stage stables, +built of sun-dried bricks. There was not another building within several +leagues of the place. Towards sunset about twenty hay-wagons arrived and +camped around the house and all the teamsters came in to supper--a very, +very rough set. There were one or two Overland stage drivers there, +also, and half a dozen vagabonds and stragglers; consequently the house +was well crowded. + +We walked out, after supper, and visited a small Indian camp in the +vicinity. The Indians were in a great hurry about something, and were +packing up and getting away as fast as they could. In their broken +English they said, "By'm-by, heap water!" and by the help of signs made +us understand that in their opinion a flood was coming. The weather was +perfectly clear, and this was not the rainy season. There was about a +foot of water in the insignificant river--or maybe two feet; the stream +was not wider than a back alley in a village, and its banks were scarcely +higher than a man's head. + +So, where was the flood to come from? We canvassed the subject awhile +and then concluded it was a ruse, and that the Indians had some better +reason for leaving in a hurry than fears of a flood in such an +exceedingly dry time. + +At seven in the evening we went to bed in the second story--with our +clothes on, as usual, and all three in the same bed, for every available +space on the floors, chairs, etc., was in request, and even then there +was barely room for the housing of the inn's guests. An hour later we +were awakened by a great turmoil, and springing out of bed we picked our +way nimbly among the ranks of snoring teamsters on the floor and got to +the front windows of the long room. A glance revealed a strange +spectacle, under the moonlight. The crooked Carson was full to the brim, +and its waters were raging and foaming in the wildest way--sweeping +around the sharp bends at a furious speed, and bearing on their surface a +chaos of logs, brush and all sorts of rubbish. A depression, where its +bed had once been, in other times, was already filling, and in one or two +places the water was beginning to wash over the main bank. Men were +flying hither and thither, bringing cattle and wagons close up to the +house, for the spot of high ground on which it stood extended only some +thirty feet in front and about a hundred in the rear. Close to the old +river bed just spoken of, stood a little log stable, and in this our +horses were lodged. + +While we looked, the waters increased so fast in this place that in a few +minutes a torrent was roaring by the little stable and its margin +encroaching steadily on the logs. We suddenly realized that this flood +was not a mere holiday spectacle, but meant damage--and not only to the +small log stable but to the Overland buildings close to the main river, +for the waves had now come ashore and were creeping about the foundations +and invading the great hay-corral adjoining. We ran down and joined the +crowd of excited men and frightened animals. We waded knee-deep into the +log stable, unfastened the horses and waded out almost waist-deep, so +fast the waters increased. Then the crowd rushed in a body to the +hay-corral and began to tumble down the huge stacks of baled hay and roll +the bales up on the high ground by the house. Meantime it was discovered +that Owens, an overland driver, was missing, and a man ran to the large +stable, and wading in, boot-top deep, discovered him asleep in his bed, +awoke him, and waded out again. But Owens was drowsy and resumed his +nap; but only for a minute or two, for presently he turned in his bed, +his hand dropped over the side and came in contact with the cold water! +It was up level with the mattress! He waded out, breast-deep, almost, +and the next moment the sun-burned bricks melted down like sugar and the +big building crumbled to a ruin and was washed away in a twinkling. + +At eleven o'clock only the roof of the little log stable was out of +water, and our inn was on an island in mid-ocean. As far as the eye +could reach, in the moonlight, there was no desert visible, but only a +level waste of shining water. The Indians were true prophets, but how +did they get their information? I am not able to answer the question. +We remained cooped up eight days and nights with that curious crew. +Swearing, drinking and card playing were the order of the day, and +occasionally a fight was thrown in for variety. Dirt and vermin--but let +us forget those features; their profusion is simply inconceivable--it is +better that they remain so. + +There were two men----however, this chapter is long enough. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing It, Part 3. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 3. *** + +***** This file should be named 8584.txt or 8584.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/8/8584/ + +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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