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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:31:50 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:31:50 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8586-h.zip b/8586-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d428def --- /dev/null +++ b/8586-h.zip diff --git a/8586-h/8586-h.htm b/8586-h/8586-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed81cba --- /dev/null +++ b/8586-h/8586-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3402 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>Roughing It, Part 5</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>ROUGHING IT, By Mark Twain, Part 5 </h2> +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Roughing It, Part 5., 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 5. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 2, 2004 [EBook #8586] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 5. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<br> +<hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + +<center><img alt="cover.jpg (90K)" src="images/cover.jpg" height="1071" width="733"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="spine.jpg (54K)" src="images/spine.jpg" height="1071" width="307"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<h1>ROUGHING IT, Part 5</h1> +<br><br> +<h2>By Mark Twain</h2> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="frontispiece1.jpg (168K)" src="images/frontispiece1.jpg" height="643" width="903"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="frontispiece2"></a> +<center><img alt="frontispiece2.jpg (184K)" src="images/frontispiece2.jpg" height="1020" width="600"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="titlepage.jpg (95K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" height="1064" width="705"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="dedication.jpg (18K)" src="images/dedication.jpg" height="273" width="425"></center> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>PREFATORY.</h2> </center> +<br> +<p>This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a +pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a +record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its +object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle +hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. +Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning +an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about +which no books have been written by persons who were on the +ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their +own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmination of the +silver-mining fever in Nevada—a curious episode, in some +respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has occurred +in the land; and the only one, indeed, that is likely to occur in +it.</p> + +<p>Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of +information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it +could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me +naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. +Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could +retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the +sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. +Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the +reader, not justification.</p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>CONTENTS.</h2></center> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + + +<p><a href="#ch41">CHAPTER XLI.</a> A Rheumatic Patient—Day Dreams—An Unfortunate +Stumble—I Leave Suddenly—Another Patient—Higbie in the +Cabin—Our Balloon Bursted—Worth Nothing—Regrets and +Explanations—Our Third Partner</p> + +<p><a href="#ch42">CHAPTER XLII.</a> What to do Next?—Obstacles I Had Met +With—"Jack of All Trades"—Mining Again—Target Shooting—I Turn +City Editor—I Succeed Finely</p> + +<p><a href="#ch43">CHAPTER XLIII.</a> My Friend Boggs—The School Report—Boggs Pays +Me An Old Debt—Virginia City</p> + +<p><a href="#ch44">CHAPTER XLIV.</a> Flush Times—Plenty of Stock—Editorial +Puffing—Stocks Given Me—Salting Mines—A Tragedian In a New +Role</p> + +<p><a href="#ch45">CHAPTER XLV.</a> Flush Times Continue—Sanitary Commission +Fund—Wild Enthusiasm of the People—Would not wait to +Contribute—The Sanitary Flour Sack—It is Carried to Gold Hill +and Dayton—Final Reception in Virginia—Results of the Sale—A +Grand Total</p> + +<p><a href="#ch46">CHAPTER XLVI.</a> The Nabobs of Those Days—John Smith as a +Traveler—Sudden Wealth—A Sixty-Thousand-Dollar Horse—A Smart +Telegraph Operator—A Nabob in New York City—Charters an +Omnibus—"Walk in, It's All Free"—"You Can't Pay a Cent"—"Hold +On, Driver, I Weaken"—Sociability of New Yorkers</p> + +<p><a href="#ch47">CHAPTER XLVII.</a> Buck Fanshaw's Death—The Cause +Thereof—Preparations for His Burial—Scotty Briggs the +Committee Man—He Visits the Minister—Scotty Can't Play His +Hand—The Minister Gets Mixed—Both Begin to See—"All Down Again +But Nine"—Buck Fanshaw as a Citizen—How To "Shook Your +Mother"—The Funeral—Scotty Briggs as a Sunday School +Teacher</p> + +<p><a href="#ch48">CHAPTER XLVIII.</a> The First Twenty-Six Graves in Nevada—The +Prominent Men of the County—The Man Who Had Killed His +Dozen—Trial by Jury—Specimen Jurors—A Private Grave Yard—The +Desperadoes—Who They Killed—Waking up the Weary +Passenger—Satisfaction Without Fighting</p> + +<p><a href="#ch49">CHAPTER XLIX.</a> Fatal Shooting Affray—Robbery and Desperate +Affray—A Specimen City Official—A Marked Man—A Street +Fight—Punishment of Crime</p> + +<p><a href="#ch50">CHAPTER L.</a> Captain Ned Blakely—Bill Nookes Receives Desired +Information—Killing of Blakely's Mate—A Walking +Battery—Blakely Secures Nookes—Hang First and Be Tried +Afterwards—Captain Blakely as a Chaplain—The First Chapter of +Genesis Read at a Hanging—Nookes Hung—Blakely's Regrets</p> + +</blockquote></blockquote> + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +149. <a href="#287">DANGEROUSLY SICK</a><br> +150. <a href="#288">WORTH NOTHING</a><br> +151. <a href="#294">THE COMPROMISE</a><br> +152. <a href="#293">ONE OF MY FAILURES</a><br> +153. <a href="#294">TARGET SHOOTING</a><br> +154. <a href="#295">AS CITY EDITOR</a><br> +155. <a href="#296">THE ENTIRE MARKET</a><br> +156. <a href="#297">A FRIEND INDEED</a><br> +157. <a href="#298">UNION-TAIL-PIECE</a><br> +158. <a href="#301">AN EDUCATIONAL REPORT</a><br> +159. <a href="#302">NO PARTICULAR HURRY</a><br> +160. <a href="#304">VIEW OF VIRGINIA CITY AND MT. DAVIDSON</a><br> +161. <a href="#307">A NEW MINE</a><br> +162. <a href="#309">TRY A FEW</a><br> +163. <a href="#310">PORTRAIT OF MR. STEWART</a><br> +164. <a href="#311">SELLING A MINE</a><br> +165. <a href="#315">COULDN'T WAIT</a><br> +166. <a href="#317">THE GREAT "FLOUR SACS" PROCESSION</a><br> +167. <a href="#319">TAIL-PIECE</a><br> +168. <a href="#321">A NABOB</a><br> +169. <a href="#323">MAGNIFICENCE AND MISERY</a><br> +170. <a href="#326">A FRIENDLY DRIVER</a><br> +171. <a href="#327">ASTONISHES THE NATIVES</a><br> +172. <a href="#328">COL. JACK WEAKENS</a><br> +173. <a href="#331">SCOTTY BRIGGS AND THE MINISTER</a><br> +174. <a href="#335">REGULATING MATTERS</a><br> +175. <a href="#337">DIDN'T SHOOK HIS MOTHER</a><br> +176. <a href="#338">SCOTTY AS S. S. TEACHER</a><br> +177. <a href="#340">THE MAN WHO HAD KILLED HIS DOZEN</a><br> +178. <a href="#342">THE UNPREJUDICED JURY</a><br> +179. <a href="#344">A DESPERADO GIVING REFERENCE</a><br> +180. <a href="#346">SATISFYING A FOE</a><br> +181. <a href="#351">TAIL-PIECE</a><br> +182. <a href="#353">GIVING INFORMATION</a><br> +183. <a href="#355">A WALKING BATTERY</a><br> +184. <a href="#358">OVERHAULING HIS MANIFEST</a><br> +185. <a href="#359">SHIP-TAIL-PIECE</a><br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br> + + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch41"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLI.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>Captain Nye was very ill indeed, with spasmodic rheumatism. +But the old gentleman was himself—which is to say, he was +kind-hearted and agreeable when comfortable, but a singularly +violent wild-cat when things did not go well. He would be smiling +along pleasantly enough, when a sudden spasm of his disease would +take him and he would go out of his smile into a perfect fury. He +would groan and wail and howl with the anguish, and fill up the +odd chinks with the most elaborate profanity that strong +convictions and a fine fancy could contrive. With fair +opportunity he could swear very well and handle his adjectives +with considerable judgment; but when the spasm was on him it was +painful to listen to him, he was so awkward. However, I had seen +him nurse a sick man himself and put up patiently with the +inconveniences of the situation, and consequently I was willing +that he should have full license now that his own turn had come. +He could not disturb me, with all his raving and ranting, for my +mind had work on hand, and it labored on diligently, night and +day, whether my hands were idle or employed. I was altering and +amending the plans for my house, and thinking over the propriety +of having the billard-room in the attic, instead of on the same +floor with the dining-room; also, I was trying to decide between +green and blue for the upholstery of the drawing-room, for, +although my preference was blue I feared it was a color that +would be too easily damaged by dust and sunlight; likewise while +I was content to put the coachman in a modest livery, I was +uncertain about a footman—I needed one, and was even resolved to +have one, but wished he could properly appear and perform his +functions out of livery, for I somewhat dreaded so much show; and +yet, inasmuch as my late grandfather had had a coachman and such +things, but no liveries, I felt rather drawn to beat him;—or +beat his ghost, at any rate; I was also systematizing the +European trip, and managed to get it all laid out, as to route +and length of time to be devoted to it—everything, with one +exception—namely, whether to cross the desert from Cairo to +Jerusalem per camel, or go by sea to Beirut, and thence down +through the country per caravan. Meantime I was writing to the +friends at home every day, instructing them concerning all my +plans and intentions, and directing them to look up a handsome +homestead for my mother and agree upon a price for it against my +coming, and also directing them to sell my share of the Tennessee +land and tender the proceeds to the widows' and orphans' fund of +the typographical union of which I had long been a member in good +standing. [This Tennessee land had been in the possession of the +family many years, and promised to confer high fortune upon us +some day; it still promises it, but in a less violent way.]</p> + +<a name="287"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="287.jpg (69K)" src="images/287.jpg" height="436" width="497"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>When I had been nursing the Captain nine days he was somewhat +better, but very feeble. During the afternoon we lifted him into +a chair and gave him an alcoholic vapor bath, and then set about +putting him on the bed again. We had to be exceedingly careful, +for the least jar produced pain. Gardiner had his shoulders and I +his legs; in an unfortunate moment I stumbled and the patient +fell heavily on the bed in an agony of torture. I never heard a +man swear so in my life. He raved like a maniac, and tried to +snatch a revolver from the table—but I got it. He ordered me out +of the house, and swore a world of oaths that he would kill me +wherever he caught me when he got on his feet again. It was +simply a passing fury, and meant nothing. I knew he would forget +it in an hour, and maybe be sorry for it, too; but it angered me +a little, at the moment. So much so, indeed, that I determined to +go back to Esmeralda. I thought he was able to get along alone, +now, since he was on the war path. I took supper, and as soon as +the moon rose, began my nine-mile journey, on foot.</p> + +<p>Even millionaires needed no horses, in those days, for a mere +nine-mile jaunt without baggage.</p> + +<p>As I "raised the hill" overlooking the town, it lacked fifteen +minutes of twelve. I glanced at the hill over beyond the canyon, +and in the bright moonlight saw what appeared to be about half +the population of the village massed on and around the Wide West +croppings. My heart gave an exulting bound, and I said to myself, +"They have made a new strike to- night—and struck it richer than +ever, no doubt." I started over there, but gave it up. I said the +"strick" would keep, and I had climbed hill enough for one night. +I went on down through the town, and as I was passing a little +German bakery, a woman ran out and begged me to come in and help +her. She said her husband had a fit. I went in, and judged she +was right—he appeared to have a hundred of them, compressed into +one. Two Germans were there, trying to hold him, and not making +much of a success of it. I ran up the street half a block or so +and routed out a sleeping doctor, brought him down half dressed, +and we four wrestled with the maniac, and doctored, drenched and +bled him, for more than an hour, and the poor German woman did +the crying. He grew quiet, now, and the doctor and I withdrew and +left him to his friends.</p> + +<p>It was a little after one o'clock. As I entered the cabin +door, tired but jolly, the dingy light of a tallow candle +revealed Higbie, sitting by the pine table gazing stupidly at my +note, which he held in his fingers, and looking pale, old, and +haggard. I halted, and looked at him. He looked at me, stolidly. +I said:</p> + +<p>"Higbie, what—what is it?"</p> + +<p>"We're ruined—we didn't do the work—THE BLIND LEAD'S +RELOCATED!"</p> + +<a name="288"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="288.jpg (57K)" src="images/288.jpg" height="508" width="387"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>It was enough. I sat down sick, grieved—broken-hearted, +indeed. A minute before, I was rich and brimful of vanity; I was +a pauper now, and very meek. We sat still an hour, busy with +thought, busy with vain and useless self-upbraidings, busy with +"Why didn't I do this, and why didn't I do that," but neither +spoke a word. Then we dropped into mutual explanations, and the +mystery was cleared away. It came out that Higbie had depended on +me, as I had on him, and as both of us had on the foreman. The +folly of it! It was the first time that ever staid and steadfast +Higbie had left an important matter to chance or failed to be +true to his full share of a responsibility.</p> + +<p>But he had never seen my note till this moment, and this +moment was the first time he had been in the cabin since the day +he had seen me last. He, also, had left a note for me, on that +same fatal afternoon—had ridden up on horseback, and looked +through the window, and being in a hurry and not seeing me, had +tossed the note into the cabin through a broken pane. Here it +was, on the floor, where it had remained undisturbed for nine +days:</p> + +<p>"Don't fail to do the work before the ten days expire. W. has +passed through and given me notice. I am to join him at Mono +Lake, and we shall go on from there to-night. He says he will +find it this time, sure. CAL."</p> + +<p>"W." meant Whiteman, of course. That thrice accursed +"cement!"</p> + +<p>That was the way of it. An old miner, like Higbie, could no +more withstand the fascination of a mysterious mining excitement +like this "cement" foolishness, than he could refrain from eating +when he was famishing. Higbie had been dreaming about the +marvelous cement for months; and now, against his better +judgment, he had gone off and "taken the chances" on my keeping +secure a mine worth a million undiscovered cement veins. They had +not been followed this time. His riding out of town in broad +daylight was such a common-place thing to do that it had not +attracted any attention. He said they prosecuted their search in +the fastnesses of the mountains during nine days, without +success; they could not find the cement. Then a ghastly fear came +over him that something might have happened to prevent the doing +of the necessary work to hold the blind lead (though indeed he +thought such a thing hardly possible), and forthwith he started +home with all speed. He would have reached Esmeralda in time, but +his horse broke down and he had to walk a great part of the +distance. And so it happened that as he came into Esmeralda by +one road, I entered it by another. His was the superior energy, +however, for he went straight to the Wide West, instead of +turning aside as I had done—and he arrived there about five or +ten minutes too late! The "notice" was already up, the +"relocation" of our mine completed beyond recall, and the crowd +rapidly dispersing. He learned some facts before he left the +ground. The foreman had not been seen about the streets since the +night we had located the mine—a telegram had called him to +California on a matter of life and death, it was said. At any +rate he had done no work and the watchful eyes of the community +were taking note of the fact. At midnight of this woful tenth +day, the ledge would be "relocatable," and by eleven o'clock the +hill was black with men prepared to do the relocating. That was +the crowd I had seen when I fancied a new "strike" had been +made—idiot that I was.</p> + +<a name="290"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="290.jpg (141K)" src="images/290.jpg" height="773" width="619"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>[We three had the same right to relocate the lead that other +people had, provided we were quick enough.] As midnight was +announced, fourteen men, duly armed and ready to back their +proceedings, put up their "notice" and proclaimed their ownership +of the blind lead, under the new name of the "Johnson." But A. D. +Allen our partner (the foreman) put in a sudden appearance about +that time, with a cocked revolver in his hand, and said his name +must be added to the list, or he would "thin out the Johnson +company some." He was a manly, splendid, determined fellow, and +known to be as good as his word, and therefore a compromise was +effected. They put in his name for a hundred feet, reserving to +themselves the customary two hundred feet each. Such was the +history of the night's events, as Higbie gathered from a friend +on the way home.</p> + +<p>Higbie and I cleared out on a new mining excitement the next +morning, glad to get away from the scene of our sufferings, and +after a month or two of hardship and disappointment, returned to +Esmeralda once more. Then we learned that the Wide West and the +Johnson companies had consolidated; that the stock, thus united, +comprised five thousand feet, or shares; that the foreman, +apprehending tiresome litigation, and considering such a huge +concern unwieldy, had sold his hundred feet for ninety thousand +dollars in gold and gone home to the States to enjoy it. If the +stock was worth such a gallant figure, with five thousand shares +in the corporation, it makes me dizzy to think what it would have +been worth with only our original six hundred in it. It was the +difference between six hundred men owning a house and five +thousand owning it. We would have been millionaires if we had +only worked with pick and spade one little day on our property +and so secured our ownership!</p> + +<p>It reads like a wild fancy sketch, but the evidence of many +witnesses, and likewise that of the official records of Esmeralda +District, is easily obtainable in proof that it is a true +history. I can always have it to say that I was absolutely and +unquestionably worth a million dollars, once, for ten days.</p> + +<p>A year ago my esteemed and in every way estimable old +millionaire partner, Higbie, wrote me from an obscure little +mining camp in California that after nine or ten years of +buffetings and hard striving, he was at last in a position where +he could command twenty-five hundred dollars, and said he meant +to go into the fruit business in a modest way. How such a thought +would have insulted him the night we lay in our cabin planning +European trips and brown stone houses on Russian Hill!</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch42"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>What to do next?</p> + +<p>It was a momentous question. I had gone out into the world to +shift for myself, at the age of thirteen (for my father had +endorsed for friends; and although he left us a sumptuous legacy +of pride in his fine Virginian stock and its national +distinction, I presently found that I could not live on that +alone without occasional bread to wash it down with). I had +gained a livelihood in various vocations, but had not dazzled +anybody with my successes; still the list was before me, and the +amplest liberty in the matter of choosing, provided I wanted to +work—which I did not, after being so wealthy. I had once been a +grocery clerk, for one day, but had consumed so much sugar in +that time that I was relieved from further duty by the +proprietor; said he wanted me outside, so that he could have my +custom. I had studied law an entire week, and then given it up +because it was so prosy and tiresome. I had engaged briefly in +the study of blacksmithing, but wasted so much time trying to fix +the bellows so that it would blow itself, that the master turned +me adrift in disgrace, and told me I would come to no good. I had +been a bookseller's clerk for awhile, but the customers bothered +me so much I could not read with any comfort, and so the +proprietor gave me a furlough and forgot to put a limit to it. I +had clerked in a drug store part of a summer, but my +prescriptions were unlucky, and we appeared to sell more stomach +pumps than soda water. So I had to go. </p> + +<a name="293"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="293.jpg (43K)" src="images/293.jpg" height="422" width="383"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>I had made of myself a +tolerable printer, under the impression that I would be another +Franklin some day, but somehow had missed the connection thus +far. There was no berth open in the Esmeralda Union, and besides +I had always been such a slow compositor that I looked with envy +upon the achievements of apprentices of two years' standing; and +when I took a "take," foremen were in the habit of suggesting +that it would be wanted "some time during the year."</p> + +<p>I was a good average St. Louis and New Orleans pilot and by no +means ashamed of my abilities in that line; wages were two +hundred and fifty dollars a month and no board to pay, and I did +long to stand behind a wheel again and never roam any more—but I +had been making such an ass of myself lately in grandiloquent +letters home about my blind lead and my European excursion that I +did what many and many a poor disappointed miner had done before; +said "It is all over with me now, and I will never go back home +to be pitied—and snubbed." I had been a private secretary, a +silver miner and a silver mill operative, and amounted to less +than nothing in each, and now—</p> + +<p>What to do next?</p> + +<p>I yielded to Higbie's appeals and consented to try the mining +once more. We climbed far up on the mountain side and went to +work on a little rubbishy claim of ours that had a shaft on it +eight feet deep. Higbie descended into it and worked bravely with +his pick till he had loosened up a deal of rock and dirt and then +I went down with a long-handled shovel (the most awkward +invention yet contrived by man) to throw it out. You must brace +the shovel forward with the side of your knee till it is full, +and then, with a skilful toss, throw it backward over your left +shoulder. I made the toss, and landed the mess just on the edge +of the shaft and it all came back on my head and down the back of +my neck. I never said a word, but climbed out and walked home. I +inwardly resolved that I would starve before I would make a +target of myself and shoot rubbish at it with a long-handled +shovel.</p> + +<a name="294"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="294.jpg (50K)" src="images/294.jpg" height="506" width="311"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>I sat down, in the cabin, and gave myself up to solid +misery—so to speak. Now in pleasanter days I had amused myself +with writing letters to the chief paper of the Territory, the +Virginia Daily Territorial Enterprise, and had always been +surprised when they appeared in print. My good opinion of the +editors had steadily declined; for it seemed to me that they +might have found something better to fill up with than my +literature. I had found a letter in the post office as I came +home from the hill side, and finally I opened it. Eureka! [I +never did know what Eureka meant, but it seems to be as proper a +word to heave in as any when no other that sounds pretty offers.] +It was a deliberate offer to me of Twenty-Five Dollars a week to +come up to Virginia and be city editor of the Enterprise.</p> + +<p>I would have challenged the publisher in the "blind lead" +days—I wanted to fall down and worship him, now. Twenty-Five +Dollars a week—it looked like bloated luxury—a fortune a sinful +and lavish waste of money. But my transports cooled when I +thought of my inexperience and consequent unfitness for the +position—and straightway, on top of this, my long array of +failures rose up before me. Yet if I refused this place I must +presently become dependent upon somebody for my bread, a thing +necessarily distasteful to a man who had never experienced such a +humiliation since he was thirteen years old. Not much to be proud +of, since it is so common—but then it was all I had to be proud +of. So I was scared into being a city editor. I would have +declined, otherwise. Necessity is the mother of "taking chances." +I do not doubt that if, at that time, I had been offered a salary +to translate the Talmud from the original Hebrew, I would have +accepted—albeit with diffidence and some misgivings—and thrown +as much variety into it as I could for the money.</p> + +<a name="295"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="295.jpg (34K)" src="images/295.jpg" height="423" width="311"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>I went up to Virginia and entered upon my new vocation. I was +a rusty looking city editor, I am free to confess—coatless, +slouch hat, blue woolen shirt, pantaloons stuffed into boot-tops, +whiskered half down to the waist, and the universal navy revolver +slung to my belt. But I secured a more Christian costume and +discarded the revolver.</p> + +<p>I had never had occasion to kill anybody, nor ever felt a +desire to do so, but had worn the thing in deference to popular +sentiment, and in order that I might not, by its absence, be +offensively conspicuous, and a subject of remark. But the other +editors, and all the printers, carried revolvers. I asked the +chief editor and proprietor (Mr. Goodman, I will call him, since +it describes him as well as any name could do) for some +instructions with regard to my duties, and he told me to go all +over town and ask all sorts of people all sorts of questions, +make notes of the information gained, and write them out for +publication. And he added:</p> + +<p>"Never say 'We learn' so-and-so, or 'It is reported,' or 'It +is rumored,' or 'We understand' so-and-so, but go to headquarters +and get the absolute facts, and then speak out and say 'It is +so-and-so.' Otherwise, people will not put confidence in your +news. Unassailable certainly is the thing that gives a newspaper +the firmest and most valuable reputation."</p> + +<p>It was the whole thing in a nut-shell; and to this day when I +find a reporter commencing his article with "We understand," I +gather a suspicion that he has not taken as much pains to inform +himself as he ought to have done. I moralize well, but I did not +always practise well when I was a city editor; I let fancy get +the upper hand of fact too often when there was a dearth of news. +I can never forget my first day's experience as a reporter. I +wandered about town questioning everybody, boring everybody, and +finding out that nobody knew anything. At the end of five hours +my notebook was still barren. I spoke to Mr. Goodman. He +said:</p> + +<p>"Dan used to make a good thing out of the hay wagons in a dry +time when there were no fires or inquests. Are there no hay +wagons in from the Truckee? If there are, you might speak of the +renewed activity and all that sort of thing, in the hay business, +you know.</p> + +<a name="296"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="296.jpg (34K)" src="images/296.jpg" height="292" width="417"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"It isn't sensational or exciting, but it fills up and looks +business like."</p> + +<p>I canvassed the city again and found one wretched old hay +truck dragging in from the country. But I made affluent use of +it. I multiplied it by sixteen, brought it into town from sixteen +different directions, made sixteen separate items out of it, and +got up such another sweat about hay as Virginia City had never +seen in the world before.</p> + +<p>This was encouraging. Two nonpareil columns had to be filled, +and I was getting along. Presently, when things began to look +dismal again, a desperado killed a man in a saloon and joy +returned once more. I never was so glad over any mere trifle +before in my life. I said to the murderer:</p> + +<p>"Sir, you are a stranger to me, but you have done me a +kindness this day which I can never forget. If whole years of +gratitude can be to you any slight compensation, they shall be +yours. I was in trouble and you have relieved me nobly and at a +time when all seemed dark and drear. Count me your friend from +this time forth, for I am not a man to forget a favor."</p> + +<a name="297"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="297.jpg (44K)" src="images/297.jpg" height="508" width="320"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>If I did not really say that to him I at least felt a sort of +itching desire to do it. I wrote up the murder with a hungry +attention to details, and when it was finished experienced but +one regret—namely, that they had not hanged my benefactor on the +spot, so that I could work him up too.</p> + +<p>Next I discovered some emigrant wagons going into camp on the +plaza and found that they had lately come through the hostile +Indian country and had fared rather roughly. I made the best of +the item that the circumstances permitted, and felt that if I +were not confined within rigid limits by the presence of the +reporters of the other papers I could add particulars that would +make the article much more interesting. However, I found one +wagon that was going on to California, and made some judicious +inquiries of the proprietor. When I learned, through his short +and surly answers to my cross-questioning, that he was certainly +going on and would not be in the city next day to make trouble, I +got ahead of the other papers, for I took down his list of names +and added his party to the killed and wounded. Having more scope +here, I put this wagon through an Indian fight that to this day +has no parallel in history.</p> + +<p>My two columns were filled. When I read them over in the +morning I felt that I had found my legitimate occupation at last. +I reasoned within myself that news, and stirring news, too, was +what a paper needed, and I felt that I was peculiarly endowed +with the ability to furnish it. Mr. Goodman said that I was as +good a reporter as Dan. I desired no higher commendation. With +encouragement like that, I felt that I could take my pen and +murder all the immigrants on the plains if need be and the +interests of the paper demanded it.</p> + +<a name="298"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="298.jpg (22K)" src="images/298.jpg" height="453" width="248"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch43"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>However, as I grew better acquainted with the business and +learned the run of the sources of information I ceased to require +the aid of fancy to any large extent, and became able to fill my +columns without diverging noticeably from the domain of fact.</p> + +<p>I struck up friendships with the reporters of the other +journals, and we swapped "regulars" with each other and thus +economized work. "Regulars" are permanent sources of news, like +courts, bullion returns, "clean-ups" at the quartz mills, and +inquests. Inasmuch as everybody went armed, we had an inquest +about every day, and so this department was naturally set down +among the "regulars." We had lively papers in those days. My +great competitor among the reporters was Boggs of the Union. He +was an excellent reporter. Once in three or four months he would +get a little intoxicated, but as a general thing he was a wary +and cautious drinker although always ready to tamper a little +with the enemy. He had the advantage of me in one thing; he could +get the monthly public school report and I could not, because the +principal hated the Enterprise. One snowy night when the report +was due, I started out sadly wondering how I was going to get it. +Presently, a few steps up the almost deserted street I stumbled +on Boggs and asked him where he was going.</p> + +<p>"After the school report."</p> + +<p>"I'll go along with you."</p> + +<p>"No, sir. I'll excuse you."</p> + +<p>"Just as you say."</p> + +<p>A saloon-keeper's boy passed by with a steaming pitcher of hot +punch, and Boggs snuffed the fragrance gratefully. He gazed +fondly after the boy and saw him start up the Enterprise stairs. +I said:</p> + +<p>"I wish you could help me get that school business, but since +you can't, I must run up to the Union office and see if I can get +them to let me have a proof of it after they have set it up, +though I don't begin to suppose they will. Good night."</p> + +<p>"Hold on a minute. I don't mind getting the report and sitting +around with the boys a little, while you copy it, if you're +willing to drop down to the principal's with me."</p> + +<p>"Now you talk like a rational being. Come along."</p> + +<p>We plowed a couple of blocks through the snow, got the report +and returned to our office. It was a short document and soon +copied. Meantime Boggs helped himself to the punch. I gave the +manuscript back to him and we started out to get an inquest, for +we heard pistol shots near by. We got the particulars with little +loss of time, for it was only an inferior sort of bar-room +murder, and of little interest to the public, and then we +separated. Away at three o'clock in the morning, when we had gone +to press and were having a relaxing concert as usual—for some +of the printers were good singers and others good performers on +the guitar and on that atrocity the accordion—the proprietor of +the Union strode in and desired to know if anybody had heard +anything of Boggs or the school report. We stated the case, and +all turned out to help hunt for the delinquent. We found him +standing on a table in a saloon, with an old tin lantern in one +hand and the school report in the other, haranguing a gang of +intoxicated Cornish miners on the iniquity of squandering the +public moneys on education "when hundreds and hundreds of honest +hard-working men are literally starving for whiskey." [Riotous +applause.] He had been assisting in a regal spree with those +parties for hours. We dragged him away and put him to bed.</p> + +<a name="301"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="301.jpg (93K)" src="images/301.jpg" height="504" width="607"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Of course there was no school report in the Union, and Boggs +held me accountable, though I was innocent of any intention or +desire to compass its absence from that paper and was as sorry as +any one that the misfortune had occurred.</p> + +<p>But we were perfectly friendly. The day that the school report +was next due, the proprietor of the "Genessee" mine furnished us +a buggy and asked us to go down and write something about the +property—a very common request and one always gladly acceded to +when people furnished buggies, for we were as fond of pleasure +excursions as other people. In due time we arrived at the +"mine"—nothing but a hole in the ground ninety feet deep, and no +way of getting down into it but by holding on to a rope and being +lowered with a windlass. The workmen had just gone off somewhere +to dinner. I was not strong enough to lower Boggs's bulk; so I +took an unlighted candle in my teeth, made a loop for my foot in +the end of the rope, implored Boggs not to go to sleep or let the +windlass get the start of him, and then swung out over the shaft. +I reached the bottom muddy and bruised about the elbows, but +safe. I lit the candle, made an examination of the rock, selected +some specimens and shouted to Boggs to hoist away. No answer. +Presently a head appeared in the circle of daylight away aloft, +and a voice came down:</p> + +<p>"Are you all set?"</p> + +<p>"All set—hoist away."</p> + +<p>"Are you comfortable?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly."</p> + +<p>"Could you wait a little?"</p> + +<p>"Oh certainly—no particular hurry."</p> + +<p>"Well—good by."</p> + +<p>"Why? Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"After the school report!"</p> + +<a name="302"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="302.jpg (71K)" src="images/302.jpg" height="713" width="314"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>And he did. I staid down there an hour, and surprised the +workmen when they hauled up and found a man on the rope instead +of a bucket of rock. I walked home, too—five miles—up hill. We +had no school report next morning; but the Union had.</p> + +<p>Six months after my entry into journalism the grand "flush +times" of Silverland began, and they continued with unabated +splendor for three years. All difficulty about filling up the +"local department" ceased, and the only trouble now was how to +make the lengthened columns hold the world of incidents and +happenings that came to our literary net every day. Virginia had +grown to be the "livest" town, for its age and population, that +America had ever produced. The sidewalks swarmed with people—to +such an extent, indeed, that it was generally no easy matter to +stem the human tide. The streets themselves were just as crowded +with quartz wagons, freight teams and other vehicles. The +procession was endless. So great was the pack, that buggies +frequently had to wait half an hour for an opportunity to cross +the principal street. Joy sat on every countenance, and there was +a glad, almost fierce, intensity in every eye, that told of the +money-getting schemes that were seething in every brain and the +high hope that held sway in every heart. Money was as plenty as +dust; every individual considered himself wealthy, and a +melancholy countenance was nowhere to be seen. There were +military companies, fire companies, brass bands, banks, hotels, +theatres, "hurdy- gurdy houses," wide-open gambling palaces, +political pow-wows, civic processions, street fights, murders, +inquests, riots, a whiskey mill every fifteen steps, a Board of +Aldermen, a Mayor, a City Surveyor, a City Engineer, a Chief of +the Fire Department, with First, Second and Third Assistants, a +Chief of Police, City Marshal and a large police force, two +Boards of Mining Brokers, a dozen breweries and half a dozen +jails and station-houses in full operation, and some talk of +building a church. The "flush times" were in magnificent flower! +Large fire-proof brick buildings were going up in the principal +streets, and the wooden suburbs were spreading out in all +directions. Town lots soared up to prices that were amazing.</p> + +<p>The great "Comstock lode" stretched its opulent length +straight through the town from north to south, and every mine on +it was in diligent process of development. One of these mines +alone employed six hundred and seventy-five men, and in the +matter of elections the adage was, "as the 'Gould and Curry' +goes, so goes the city." Laboring men's wages were four and six +dollars a day, and they worked in three "shifts" or gangs, and +the blasting and picking and shoveling went on without ceasing, +night and day.</p> + +<p>The "city" of Virginia roosted royally midway up the steep +side of Mount Davidson, seven thousand two hundred feet above the +level of the sea, and in the clear Nevada atmosphere was visible +from a distance of fifty miles! It claimed a population of +fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand, and all day long half of +this little army swarmed the streets like bees and the other half +swarmed among the drifts and tunnels of the "Comstock," hundreds +of feet down in the earth directly under those same streets. +Often we felt our chairs jar, and heard the faint boom of a blast +down in the bowels of the earth under the office.</p> + +<p>The mountain side was so steep that the entire town had a +slant to it like a roof. Each street was a terrace, and from each +to the next street below the descent was forty or fifty feet. The +fronts of the houses were level with the street they faced, but +their rear first floors were propped on lofty stilts; a man could +stand at a rear first floor window of a C street house and look +down the chimneys of the row of houses below him facing D street. +It was a laborious climb, in that thin atmosphere, to ascend from +D to A street, and you were panting and out of breath when you +got there; but you could turn around and go down again like a +house a-fire—so to speak. The atmosphere was so rarified, on +account of the great altitude, that one's blood lay near the +surface always, and the scratch of a pin was a disaster worth +worrying about, for the chances were that a grievous erysipelas +would ensue. But to offset this, the thin atmosphere seemed to +carry healing to gunshot wounds, and therefore, to simply shoot +your adversary through both lungs was a thing not likely to +afford you any permanent satisfaction, for he would be nearly +certain to be around looking for you within the month, and not +with an opera glass, either.</p> + +<a name="304"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="304.jpg (102K)" src="images/304.jpg" height="264" width="650"> +</center> +<br><a href="images/304.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Full Size" src="images/enlarge.jpg"></a> +<br><br> + +<p>From Virginia's airy situation one could look over a vast, +far-reaching panorama of mountain ranges and deserts; and whether +the day was bright or overcast, whether the sun was rising or +setting, or flaming in the zenith, or whether night and the moon +held sway, the spectacle was always impressive and beautiful. +Over your head Mount Davidson lifted its gray dome, and before +and below you a rugged canyon clove the battlemented hills, +making a sombre gateway through which a soft-tinted desert was +glimpsed, with the silver thread of a river winding through it, +bordered with trees which many miles of distance diminished to a +delicate fringe; and still further away the snowy mountains rose +up and stretched their long barrier to the filmy horizon—far +enough beyond a lake that burned in the desert like a fallen sun, +though that, itself, lay fifty miles removed. Look from your +window where you would, there was fascination in the picture. At +rare intervals—but very rare—there were clouds in our skies, +and then the setting sun would gild and flush and glorify this +mighty expanse of scenery with a bewildering pomp of color that +held the eye like a spell and moved the spirit like music.</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch44"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>My salary was increased to forty dollars a week. But I seldom +drew it. I had plenty of other resources, and what were two broad +twenty-dollar gold pieces to a man who had his pockets full of +such and a cumbersome abundance of bright half dollars besides? +[Paper money has never come into use on the Pacific coast.] +Reporting was lucrative, and every man in the town was lavish +with his money and his "feet." The city and all the great +mountain side were riddled with mining shafts. There were more +mines than miners. True, not ten of these mines were yielding +rock worth hauling to a mill, but everybody said, "Wait till the +shaft gets down where the ledge comes in solid, and then you will +see!" So nobody was discouraged. These were nearly all "wild cat" +mines, and wholly worthless, but nobody believed it then. The +"Ophir," the "Gould & Curry," the "Mexican," and other great +mines on the Comstock lead in Virginia and Gold Hill were turning +out huge piles of rich rock every day, and every man believed +that his little wild cat claim was as good as any on the "main +lead" and would infallibly be worth a thousand dollars a foot +when he "got down where it came in solid." Poor fellow, he was +blessedly blind to the fact that he never would see that day. So +the thousand wild cat shafts burrowed deeper and deeper into the +earth day by day, and all men were beside themselves with hope +and happiness. How they labored, prophesied, exulted! Surely +nothing like it was ever seen before since the world began. Every +one of these wild cat mines—not mines, but holes in the ground +over imaginary mines—was incorporated and had handsomely +engraved "stock" and the stock was salable, too. It was bought +and sold with a feverish avidity in the boards every day. You +could go up on the mountain side, scratch around and find a ledge +(there was no lack of them), put up a "notice" with a +grandiloquent name in it, start a shaft, get your stock printed, +and with nothing whatever to prove that your mine was worth a +straw, you could put your stock on the market and sell out for +hundreds and even thousands of dollars. To make money, and make +it fast, was as easy as it was to eat your dinner.</p> + +<a name="307"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="307.jpg (54K)" src="images/307.jpg" height="461" width="376"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Every man owned "feet" in fifty different wild cat mines and +considered his fortune made. Think of a city with not one +solitary poor man in it! One would suppose that when month after +month went by and still not a wild cat mine (by wild cat I mean, +in general terms, any claim not located on the mother vein, i.e., +the "Comstock") yielded a ton of rock worth crushing, the people +would begin to wonder if they were not putting too much faith in +their prospective riches; but there was not a thought of such a +thing. They burrowed away, bought and sold, and were happy.</p> + +<p>New claims were taken up daily, and it was the friendly custom +to run straight to the newspaper offices, give the reporter forty +or fifty "feet," and get them to go and examine the mine and +publish a notice of it. They did not care a fig what you said +about the property so you said something. Consequently we +generally said a word or two to the effect that the "indications" +were good, or that the ledge was "six feet wide," or that the +rock "resembled the Comstock" (and so it did—but as a general +thing the resemblance was not startling enough to knock you +down). If the rock was moderately promising, we followed the +custom of the country, used strong adjectives and frothed at the +mouth as if a very marvel in silver discoveries had transpired. +If the mine was a "developed" one, and had no pay ore to show +(and of course it hadn't), we praised the tunnel; said it was one +of the most infatuating tunnels in the land; driveled and +driveled about the tunnel till we ran entirely out of +ecstasies—but never said a word about the rock. We would +squander half a column of adulation on a shaft, or a new wire +rope, or a dressed pine windlass, or a fascinating force pump, +and close with a burst of admiration of the "gentlemanly and +efficient Superintendent" of the mine—but never utter a whisper +about the rock. And those people were always pleased, always +satisfied. Occasionally we patched up and varnished our +reputation for discrimination and stern, undeviating accuracy, by +giving some old abandoned claim a blast that ought to have made +its dry bones rattle—and then somebody would seize it and sell +it on the fleeting notoriety thus conferred upon it.</p> + +<p>There was nothing in the shape of a mining claim that was not +salable. We received presents of "feet" every day. If we needed a +hundred dollars or so, we sold some; if not, we hoarded it away, +satisfied that it would ultimately be worth a thousand dollars a +foot. I had a trunk about half full of "stock." When a claim made +a stir in the market and went up to a high figure, I searched +through my pile to see if I had any of its stock—and generally +found it.</p> + +<p>The prices rose and fell constantly; but still a fall +disturbed us little, because a thousand dollars a foot was our +figure, and so we were content to let it fluctuate as much as it +pleased till it reached it. My pile of stock was not all given to +me by people who wished their claims "noticed." At least half of +it was given me by persons who had no thought of such a thing, +and looked for nothing more than a simple verbal "thank you;" and +you were not even obliged by law to furnish that. If you are +coming up the street with a couple of baskets of apples in your +hands, and you meet a friend, you naturally invite him to take a +few. That describes the condition of things in Virginia in the +"flush times." Every man had his pockets full of stock, and it +was the actual custom of the country to part with small +quantities of it to friends without the asking.</p> + +<a name="309"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="309.jpg (41K)" src="images/309.jpg" height="486" width="251"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Very often it was a good idea to close the transaction +instantly, when a man offered a stock present to a friend, for +the offer was only good and binding at that moment, and if the +price went to a high figure shortly afterward the procrastination +was a thing to be regretted. Mr. Stewart (Senator, now, from +Nevada) one day told me he would give me twenty feet of "Justis" +stock if I would walk over to his office. It was worth five or +ten dollars a foot. I asked him to make the offer good for next +day, as I was just going to dinner. He said he would not be in +town; so I risked it and took my dinner instead of the stock. +Within the week the price went up to seventy dollars and +afterward to a hundred and fifty, but nothing could make that man +yield. I suppose he sold that stock of mine and placed the guilty +proceeds in his own pocket. [My revenge will be found in the +accompanying portrait.] I met three friends one afternoon, who +said they had been buying "Overman" stock at auction at eight +dollars a foot. One said if I would come up to his office he +would give me fifteen feet; another said he would add fifteen; +the third said he would do the same. But I was going after an +inquest and could not stop. A few weeks afterward they sold all +their "Overman" at six hundred dollars a foot and generously came +around to tell me about it—and also to urge me to accept of the +next forty-five feet of it that people tried to force on me.</p> + +<a name="310"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="310.jpg (27K)" src="images/310.jpg" height="355" width="302"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>These are actual facts, and I could make the list a long one +and still confine myself strictly to the truth. Many a time +friends gave us as much as twenty-five feet of stock that was +selling at twenty-five dollars a foot, and they thought no more +of it than they would of offering a guest a cigar. These were +"flush times" indeed! I thought they were going to last always, +but somehow I never was much of a prophet.</p> + +<p>To show what a wild spirit possessed the mining brain of the +community, I will remark that "claims" were actually "located" in +excavations for cellars, where the pick had exposed what seemed +to be quartz veins—and not cellars in the suburbs, either, but +in the very heart of the city; and forthwith stock would be +issued and thrown on the market. It was small matter who the +cellar belonged to—the "ledge" belonged to the finder, and +unless the United States government interfered (inasmuch as the +government holds the primary right to mines of the noble metals +in Nevada—or at least did then), it was considered to be his +privilege to work it. Imagine a stranger staking out a mining +claim among the costly shrubbery in your front yard and calmly +proceeding to lay waste the ground with pick and shovel and +blasting powder! It has been often done in California. In the +middle of one of the principal business streets of Virginia, a +man "located" a mining claim and began a shaft on it. He gave me +a hundred feet of the stock and I sold it for a fine suit of +clothes because I was afraid somebody would fall down the shaft +and sue for damages. I owned in another claim that was located in +the middle of another street; and to show how absurd people can +be, that "East India" stock (as it was called) sold briskly +although there was an ancient tunnel running directly under the +claim and any man could go into it and see that it did not cut a +quartz ledge or anything that remotely resembled one.</p> + +<p>One plan of acquiring sudden wealth was to "salt" a wild cat +claim and sell out while the excitement was up. The process was +simple.</p> + +<a name="311"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="311.jpg (69K)" src="images/311.jpg" height="533" width="431"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The schemer located a worthless ledge, sunk a shaft on it, +bought a wagon load of rich "Comstock" ore, dumped a portion of +it into the shaft and piled the rest by its side, above ground. +Then he showed the property to a simpleton and sold it to him at +a high figure. Of course the wagon load of rich ore was all that +the victim ever got out of his purchase. A most remarkable case +of "salting" was that of the "North Ophir." It was claimed that +this vein was a "remote extension" of the original "Ophir," a +valuable mine on the "Comstock." For a few days everybody was +talking about the rich developments in the North Ophir. It was +said that it yielded perfectly pure silver in small, solid lumps. +I went to the place with the owners, and found a shaft six or +eight feet deep, in the bottom of which was a badly shattered +vein of dull, yellowish, unpromising rock. One would as soon +expect to find silver in a grindstone. We got out a pan of the +rubbish and washed it in a puddle, and sure enough, among the +sediment we found half a dozen black, bullet- looking pellets of +unimpeachable "native" silver. Nobody had ever heard of such a +thing before; science could not account for such a queer novelty. +The stock rose to sixty-five dollars a foot, and at this figure +the world-renowned tragedian, McKean Buchanan, bought a +commanding interest and prepared to quit the stage once more—he +was always doing that. And then it transpired that the mine had +been "salted"—and not in any hackneyed way, either, but in a +singularly bold, barefaced and peculiarly original and outrageous +fashion. On one of the lumps of "native" silver was discovered +the minted legend, "TED STATES OF," and then it was plainly +apparent that the mine had been "salted" with melted +half-dollars! The lumps thus obtained had been blackened till +they resembled native silver, and were then mixed with the +shattered rock in the bottom of the shaft. It is literally true. +Of course the price of the stock at once fell to nothing, and the +tragedian was ruined. But for this calamity we might have lost +McKean Buchanan from the stage.</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch45"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLV.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>The "flush times" held bravely on. Something over two years +before, Mr. Goodman and another journeyman printer, had borrowed +forty dollars and set out from San Francisco to try their +fortunes in the new city of Virginia. They found the Territorial +Enterprise, a poverty-stricken weekly journal, gasping for breath +and likely to die. They bought it, type, fixtures, good-will and +all, for a thousand dollars, on long time. The editorial sanctum, +news-room, press-room, publication office, bed- chamber, parlor, +and kitchen were all compressed into one apartment and it was a +small one, too. The editors and printers slept on the floor, a +Chinaman did their cooking, and the "imposing-stone" was the +general dinner table. But now things were changed. The paper was +a great daily, printed by steam; there were five editors and +twenty-three compositors; the subscription price was sixteen +dollars a year; the advertising rates were exorbitant, and the +columns crowded. The paper was clearing from six to ten thousand +dollars a month, and the "Enterprise Building" was finished and +ready for occupation—a stately fireproof brick. Every day from +five all the way up to eleven columns of "live" advertisements +were left out or crowded into spasmodic and irregular +"supplements."</p> + +<p>The "Gould & Curry" company were erecting a monster +hundred-stamp mill at a cost that ultimately fell little short of +a million dollars. Gould & Curry stock paid heavy dividends—a +rare thing, and an experience confined to the dozen or fifteen +claims located on the "main lead," the "Comstock." The +Superintendent of the Gould & Curry lived, rent free, in a fine +house built and furnished by the company. He drove a fine pair of +horses which were a present from the company, and his salary was +twelve thousand dollars a year. The superintendent of another of +the great mines traveled in grand state, had a salary of +twenty-eight thousand dollars a year, and in a law suit in after +days claimed that he was to have had one per cent. on the gross +yield of the bullion likewise.</p> + +<p>Money was wonderfully plenty. The trouble was, not how to get +it,—but how to spend it, how to lavish it, get rid of it, +squander it. And so it was a happy thing that just at this +juncture the news came over the wires that a great United States +Sanitary Commission had been formed and money was wanted for the +relief of the wounded sailors and soldiers of the Union +languishing in the Eastern hospitals. Right on the heels of it +came word that San Francisco had responded superbly before the +telegram was half a day old. Virginia rose as one man! A Sanitary +Committee was hurriedly organized, and its chairman mounted a +vacant cart in C street and tried to make the clamorous multitude +understand that the rest of the committee were flying hither and +thither and working with all their might and main, and that if +the town would only wait an hour, an office would be ready, books +opened, and the Commission prepared to receive contributions. His +voice was drowned and his information lost in a ceaseless roar of +cheers, and demands that the money be received now—they swore +they would not wait. The chairman pleaded and argued, but, deaf +to all entreaty, men plowed their way through the throng and +rained checks of gold coin into the cart and skurried away for +more. Hands clutching money, were thrust aloft out of the jam by +men who hoped this eloquent appeal would cleave a road their +strugglings could not open. The very Chinamen and Indians caught +the excitement and dashed their half dollars into the cart +without knowing or caring what it was all about. Women plunged +into the crowd, trimly attired, fought their way to the cart with +their coin, and emerged again, by and by, with their apparel in a +state of hopeless dilapidation. It was the wildest mob Virginia +had ever seen and the most determined and ungovernable; and when +at last it abated its fury and dispersed, it had not a penny in +its pocket.</p> + +<a name="315"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="315.jpg (125K)" src="images/315.jpg" height="676" width="597"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>To use its own phraseology, it came there "flush" and went +away "busted."</p> + +<p>After that, the Commission got itself into systematic working +order, and for weeks the contributions flowed into its treasury +in a generous stream. Individuals and all sorts of organizations +levied upon themselves a regular weekly tax for the sanitary +fund, graduated according to their means, and there was not +another grand universal outburst till the famous "Sanitary Flour +Sack" came our way. Its history is peculiar and interesting. A +former schoolmate of mine, by the name of Reuel Gridley, was +living at the little city of Austin, in the Reese river country, +at this time, and was the Democratic candidate for mayor. He and +the Republican candidate made an agreement that the defeated man +should be publicly presented with a fifty-pound sack of flour by +the successful one, and should carry it home on his shoulder. +Gridley was defeated. The new mayor gave him the sack of flour, +and he shouldered it and carried it a mile or two, from Lower +Austin to his home in Upper Austin, attended by a band of music +and the whole population. Arrived there, he said he did not need +the flour, and asked what the people thought he had better do +with it. A voice said:</p> + +<p>"Sell it to the highest bidder, for the benefit of the +Sanitary fund."</p> + +<p>The suggestion was greeted with a round of applause, and +Gridley mounted a dry-goods box and assumed the role of +auctioneer. The bids went higher and higher, as the sympathies of +the pioneers awoke and expanded, till at last the sack was +knocked down to a mill man at two hundred and fifty dollars, and +his check taken. He was asked where he would have the flour +delivered, and he said:</p> + +<p>"Nowhere—sell it again."</p> + +<p>Now the cheers went up royally, and the multitude were fairly +in the spirit of the thing. So Gridley stood there and shouted +and perspired till the sun went down; and when the crowd +dispersed he had sold the sack to three hundred different people, +and had taken in eight thousand dollars in gold. And still the +flour sack was in his possession.</p> + +<a name="317"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="317.jpg (157K)" src="images/317.jpg" height="446" width="650"> +</center> +<br><a href="images/317.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Full Size" src="images/enlarge.jpg"></a> +<br><br> + +<p>The news came to Virginia, and a telegram went back:</p> + +<p>"Fetch along your flour sack!"</p> + +<p>Thirty-six hours afterward Gridley arrived, and an afternoon +mass meeting was held in the Opera House, and the auction began. +But the sack had come sooner than it was expected; the people +were not thoroughly aroused, and the sale dragged. At nightfall +only five thousand dollars had been secured, and there was a +crestfallen feeling in the community. However, there was no +disposition to let the matter rest here and acknowledge +vanquishment at the hands of the village of Austin. Till late in +the night the principal citizens were at work arranging the +morrow's campaign, and when they went to bed they had no fears +for the result. At eleven the next morning a procession of open +carriages, attended by clamorous bands of music and adorned with +a moving display of flags, filed along C street and was soon in +danger of blockade by a huzzaing multitude of citizens. In the +first carriage sat Gridley, with the flour sack in prominent +view, the latter splendid with bright paint and gilt lettering; +also in the same carriage sat the mayor and the recorder. The +other carriages contained the Common Council, the editors and +reporters, and other people of imposing consequence. The crowd +pressed to the corner of C and Taylor streets, expecting the sale +to begin there, but they were disappointed, and also unspeakably +surprised; for the cavalcade moved on as if Virginia had ceased +to be of importance, and took its way over the "divide," toward +the small town of Gold Hill. Telegrams had gone ahead to Gold +Hill, Silver City and Dayton, and those communities were at fever +heat and rife for the conflict. It was a very hot day, and +wonderfully dusty. At the end of a short half hour we descended +into Gold Hill with drums beating and colors flying, and +enveloped in imposing clouds of dust. The whole population—men, +women and children, Chinamen and Indians, were massed in the main +street, all the flags in town were at the mast head, and the +blare of the bands was drowned in cheers. Gridley stood up and +asked who would make the first bid for the National Sanitary +Flour Sack. Gen. W. said:</p> + +<p>"The Yellow Jacket silver mining company offers a thousand +dollars, coin!"</p> + +<p>A tempest of applause followed. A telegram carried the news to +Virginia, and fifteen minutes afterward that city's population +was massed in the streets devouring the tidings—for it was part +of the programme that the bulletin boards should do a good work +that day. Every few minutes a new dispatch was bulletined from +Gold Hill, and still the excitement grew. Telegrams began to +return to us from Virginia beseeching Gridley to bring back the +flour sack; but such was not the plan of the campaign. At the end +of an hour Gold Hill's small population had paid a figure for the +flour sack that awoke all the enthusiasm of Virginia when the +grand total was displayed upon the bulletin boards. Then the +Gridley cavalcade moved on, a giant refreshed with new lager beer +and plenty of it—for the people brought it to the carriages +without waiting to measure it—and within three hours more the +expedition had carried Silver City and Dayton by storm and was on +its way back covered with glory. Every move had been telegraphed +and bulletined, and as the procession entered Virginia and filed +down C street at half past eight in the evening the town was +abroad in the thoroughfares, torches were glaring, flags flying, +bands playing, cheer on cheer cleaving the air, and the city +ready to surrender at discretion. The auction began, every bid +was greeted with bursts of applause, and at the end of two hours +and a half a population of fifteen thousand souls had paid in +coin for a fifty-pound sack of flour a sum equal to forty +thousand dollars in greenbacks! It was at a rate in the +neighborhood of three dollars for each man, woman and child of +the population. The grand total would have been twice as large, +but the streets were very narrow, and hundreds who wanted to bid +could not get within a block of the stand, and could not make +themselves heard. These grew tired of waiting and many of them +went home long before the auction was over. This was the greatest +day Virginia ever saw, perhaps.</p> + +<p>Gridley sold the sack in Carson city and several California +towns; also in San Francisco. Then he took it east and sold it in +one or two Atlantic cities, I think. I am not sure of that, but I +know that he finally carried it to St. Louis, where a monster +Sanitary Fair was being held, and after selling it there for a +large sum and helping on the enthusiasm by displaying the portly +silver bricks which Nevada's donation had produced, he had the +flour baked up into small cakes and retailed them at high +prices.</p> + +<p>It was estimated that when the flour sack's mission was ended +it had been sold for a grand total of a hundred and fifty +thousand dollars in greenbacks! This is probably the only +instance on record where common family flour brought three +thousand dollars a pound in the public market.</p> + +<p>It is due to Mr. Gridley's memory to mention that the expenses +of his sanitary flour sack expedition of fifteen thousand miles, +going and returning, were paid in large part if not entirely, out +of his own pocket. The time he gave to it was not less than three +months. Mr. Gridley was a soldier in the Mexican war and a +pioneer Californian. He died at Stockton, California, in +December, 1870, greatly regretted.</p> + +<a name="319"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="319.jpg (51K)" src="images/319.jpg" height="415" width="443"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch46"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>There were nabobs in those days—in the "flush times," I mean. +Every rich strike in the mines created one or two. I call to mind +several of these. They were careless, easy-going fellows, as a +general thing, and the community at large was as much benefited +by their riches as they were themselves—possibly more, in some +cases.</p> + +<p>Two cousins, teamsters, did some hauling for a man and had to +take a small segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu of $300 +cash. They gave an outsider a third to open the mine, and they +went on teaming. But not long. Ten months afterward the mine was +out of debt and paying each owner $8,000 to $10,000 a month—say +$100,000 a year.</p> + +<p>One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of wore +$6,000 worth of diamonds in his bosom, and swore he was unhappy +because he could not spend his money as fast as he made it.</p> + +<p>Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that often reached +$16,000 a month; and he used to love to tell how he had worked in +the very mine that yielded it, for five dollars a day, when he +first came to the country.</p> + +<a name="321"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="321.jpg (31K)" src="images/321.jpg" height="489" width="301"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another of +these pets of fortune—lifted from actual poverty to affluence +almost in a single night—who was able to offer $100,000 for a +position of high official distinction, shortly afterward, and did +offer it—but failed to get it, his politics not being as sound +as his bank account.</p> + +<p>Then there was John Smith. He was a good, honest, kind-hearted +soul, born and reared in the lower ranks of life, and +miraculously ignorant. He drove a team, and owned a small +ranch—a ranch that paid him a comfortable living, for although +it yielded but little hay, what little it did yield was worth +from $250 to $300 in gold per ton in the market. Presently Smith +traded a few acres of the ranch for a small undeveloped silver +mine in Gold Hill. He opened the mine and built a little +unpretending ten-stamp mill. Eighteen months afterward he retired +from the hay business, for his mining income had reached a most +comfortable figure. Some people said it was $30,000 a month, and +others said it was $60,000. Smith was very rich at any rate.</p> + +<p>And then he went to Europe and traveled. And when he came back +he was never tired of telling about the fine hogs he had seen in +England, and the gorgeous sheep he had seen in Spain, and the +fine cattle he had noticed in the vicinity of Rome. He was full +of wonders of the old world, and advised everybody to travel. He +said a man never imagined what surprising things there were in +the world till he had traveled.</p> + +<p>One day, on board ship, the passengers made up a pool of $500, +which was to be the property of the man who should come nearest +to guessing the run of the vessel for the next twenty-four hours. +Next day, toward noon, the figures were all in the purser's hands +in sealed envelopes. Smith was serene and happy, for he had been +bribing the engineer. But another party won the prize! Smith +said:</p> + +<p>"Here, that won't do! He guessed two miles wider of the mark +than I did."</p> + +<p>The purser said, "Mr. Smith, you missed it further than any +man on board. We traveled two hundred and eight miles +yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," said Smith, "that's just where I've got you, for +I guessed two hundred and nine. If you'll look at my figgers +again you'll find a 2 and two 0's, which stands for 200, don't +it?—and after 'em you'll find a 9 (2009), which stands for two +hundred and nine. I reckon I'll take that money, if you +please."</p> + +<p>The Gould & Curry claim comprised twelve hundred feet, and it +all belonged originally to the two men whose names it bears. Mr. +Curry owned two thirds of it—and he said that he sold it out for +twenty-five hundred dollars in cash, and an old plug horse that +ate up his market value in hay and barley in seventeen days by +the watch. And he said that Gould sold out for a pair of +second-hand government blankets and a bottle of whisky that +killed nine men in three hours, and that an unoffending stranger +that smelt the cork was disabled for life. Four years afterward +the mine thus disposed of was worth in the San Francisco market +seven millions six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin.</p> + +<p>In the early days a poverty-stricken Mexican who lived in a +canyon directly back of Virginia City, had a stream of water as +large as a man's wrist trickling from the hill-side on his +premises. The Ophir Company segregated a hundred feet of their +mine and traded it to him for the stream of water. The hundred +feet proved to be the richest part of the entire mine; four years +after the swap, its market value (including its mill) was +$1,500,000.</p> + +<p>An individual who owned twenty feet in the Ophir mine before +its great riches were revealed to men, traded it for a horse, and +a very sorry looking brute he was, too. A year or so afterward, +when Ophir stock went up to $3,000 a foot, this man, who had not +a cent, used to say he was the most startling example of +magnificence and misery the world had ever seen—because he was +able to ride a sixty-thousand-dollar horse—yet could not scrape +up cash enough to buy a saddle, and was obliged to borrow one or +ride bareback. He said if fortune were to give him another +sixty-thousand-dollar horse it would ruin him.</p> + +<a name="323"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="323.jpg (46K)" src="images/323.jpg" height="531" width="348"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>A youth of nineteen, who was a telegraph operator in Virginia +on a salary of a hundred dollars a month, and who, when he could +not make out German names in the list of San Francisco steamer +arrivals, used to ingeniously select and supply substitutes for +them out of an old Berlin city directory, made himself rich by +watching the mining telegrams that passed through his hands and +buying and selling stocks accordingly, through a friend in San +Francisco. Once when a private dispatch was sent from Virginia +announcing a rich strike in a prominent mine and advising that +the matter be kept secret till a large amount of the stock could +be secured, he bought forty "feet" of the stock at twenty dollars +a foot, and afterward sold half of it at eight hundred dollars a +foot and the rest at double that figure. Within three months he +was worth $150,000, and had resigned his telegraphic +position.</p> + +<p>Another telegraph operator who had been discharged by the +company for divulging the secrets of the office, agreed with a +moneyed man in San Francisco to furnish him the result of a great +Virginia mining lawsuit within an hour after its private +reception by the parties to it in San Francisco. For this he was +to have a large percentage of the profits on purchases and sales +made on it by his fellow-conspirator. So he went, disguised as a +teamster, to a little wayside telegraph office in the mountains, +got acquainted with the operator, and sat in the office day after +day, smoking his pipe, complaining that his team was fagged out +and unable to travel—and meantime listening to the dispatches as +they passed clicking through the machine from Virginia. Finally +the private dispatch announcing the result of the lawsuit sped +over the wires, and as soon as he heard it he telegraphed his +friend in San Francisco:</p> + +<p>"Am tired waiting. Shall sell the team and go home."</p> + +<p>It was the signal agreed upon. The word "waiting" left out, +would have signified that the suit had gone the other way.</p> + +<p>The mock teamster's friend picked up a deal of the mining +stock, at low figures, before the news became public, and a +fortune was the result.</p> + +<p>For a long time after one of the great Virginia mines had been +incorporated, about fifty feet of the original location were +still in the hands of a man who had never signed the +incorporation papers. The stock became very valuable, and every +effort was made to find this man, but he had disappeared. Once it +was heard that he was in New York, and one or two speculators +went east but failed to find him. Once the news came that he was +in the Bermudas, and straightway a speculator or two hurried east +and sailed for Bermuda—but he was not there. Finally he was +heard of in Mexico, and a friend of his, a bar-keeper on a +salary, scraped together a little money and sought him out, +bought his "feet" for a hundred dollars, returned and sold the +property for $75,000.</p> + +<p>But why go on? The traditions of Silverland are filled with +instances like these, and I would never get through enumerating +them were I to attempt do it. I only desired to give, the reader +an idea of a peculiarity of the "flush times" which I could not +present so strikingly in any other way, and which some mention of +was necessary to a realizing comprehension of the time and the +country.</p> + +<p>I was personally acquainted with the majority of the nabobs I +have referred to, and so, for old acquaintance sake, I have +shifted their occupations and experiences around in such a way as +to keep the Pacific public from recognizing these once notorious +men. No longer notorious, for the majority of them have drifted +back into poverty and obscurity again.</p> + +<p>In Nevada there used to be current the story of an adventure +of two of her nabobs, which may or may not have occurred. I give +it for what it is worth:</p> + +<p>Col. Jim had seen somewhat of the world, and knew more or less +of its ways; but Col. Jack was from the back settlements of the +States, had led a life of arduous toil, and had never seen a +city. These two, blessed with sudden wealth, projected a visit to +New York,—Col. Jack to see the sights, and Col. Jim to guard his +unsophistication from misfortune. They reached San Francisco in +the night, and sailed in the morning. Arrived in New York, Col. +Jack said:</p> + +<p>"I've heard tell of carriages all my life, and now I mean to +have a ride in one; I don't care what it costs. Come along."</p> + +<p>They stepped out on the sidewalk, and Col. Jim called a +stylish barouche. But Col. Jack said:</p> + +<p>"No, sir! None of your cheap-John turn-outs for me. I'm here +to have a good time, and money ain't any object. I mean to have +the nobbiest rig that's going. Now here comes the very trick. +Stop that yaller one with the pictures on it—don't you +fret—I'll stand all the expenses myself."</p> + +<p>So Col. Jim stopped an empty omnibus, and they got in. Said +Col. Jack:</p> + +<p>"Ain't it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not! Cushions, and +windows, and pictures, till you can't rest. What would the boys +say if they could see us cutting a swell like this in New York? +By George, I wish they could see us."</p> + +<p>Then he put his head out of the window, and shouted to the +driver:</p> + +<p>"Say, Johnny, this suits me!—suits yours truly, you bet, you! +I want this shebang all day. I'm on it, old man! Let 'em out! +Make 'em go! We'll make it all right with you, sonny!"</p> + +<p>The driver passed his hand through the strap-hole, and tapped +for his fare—it was before the gongs came into common use. Col. +Jack took the hand, and shook it cordially. He said:</p> + +<a name="326"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="326.jpg (51K)" src="images/326.jpg" height="493" width="327"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"You twig me, old pard! All right between gents. Smell of +that, and see how you like it!"</p> + +<p>And he put a twenty-dollar gold piece in the driver's hand. +After a moment the driver said he could not make change.</p> + +<p>"Bother the change! Ride it out. Put it in your pocket."</p> + +<p>Then to Col. Jim, with a sounding slap on his thigh:</p> + +<p>"Ain't it style, though? Hanged if I don't hire this thing +every day for a week."</p> + +<p>The omnibus stopped, and a young lady got in. Col. Jack stared +a moment, then nudged Col. Jim with his elbow:</p> + +<p>"Don't say a word," he whispered. "Let her ride, if she wants +to. Gracious, there's room enough."</p> + +<p>The young lady got out her porte-monnaie, and handed her fare +to Col. Jack.</p> + +<p>"What's this for?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Give it to the driver, please."</p> + +<p>"Take back your money, madam. We can't allow it. You're +welcome to ride here as long as you please, but this shebang's +chartered, and we can't let you pay a cent."</p> + +<a name="327"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="327.jpg (34K)" src="images/327.jpg" height="334" width="325"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old lady with a +basket climbed in, and proffered her fare.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," said Col. Jack. "You're perfectly welcome here, +madam, but we can't allow you to pay. Set right down there, mum, +and don't you be the least uneasy. Make yourself just as free as +if you was in your own turn-out."</p> + +<p>Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat women, and a +couple of children, entered.</p> + +<p>"Come right along, friends," said Col. Jack; "don't mind us. +This is a free blow-out." Then he whispered to Col. Jim,</p> + +<p>"New York ain't no sociable place, I don't reckon—it ain't no +name for it!"</p> + +<p>He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver, and made +everybody cordially welcome. The situation dawned on the people, +and they pocketed their money, and delivered themselves up to +covert enjoyment of the episode. Half a dozen more passengers +entered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there's plenty of room," said Col. Jack. "Walk right in, +and make yourselves at home. A blow-out ain't worth anything as a +blow-out, unless a body has company." Then in a whisper to Col. +Jim: "But ain't these New Yorkers friendly? And ain't they cool +about it, too? Icebergs ain't anywhere. I reckon they'd tackle a +hearse, if it was going their way."</p> + +<p>More passengers got in; more yet, and still more. Both seats +were filled, and a file of men were standing up, holding on to +the cleats overhead. Parties with baskets and bundles were +climbing up on the roof. Half-suppressed laughter rippled up from +all sides.</p> + +<p>"Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don't bang +anything that ever I saw, I'm an Injun!" whispered Col. Jack.</p> + +<p>A Chinaman crowded his way in.</p> + +<p>"I weaken!" said Col. Jack. "Hold on, driver! Keep your seats, +ladies, and gents. Just make yourselves free—everything's paid +for. Driver, rustle these folks around as long as they're a mind +to go—friends of ours, you know. Take them everywheres—and if +you want more money, come to the St. Nicholas, and we'll make it +all right. Pleasant journey to you, ladies and gents—go it just +as long as you please—it shan't cost you a cent!"</p> + +<a name="328"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="328.jpg (93K)" src="images/328.jpg" height="478" width="611"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The two comrades got out, and Col. Jack said:</p> + +<p>"Jimmy, it's the sociablest place I ever saw. The Chinaman +waltzed in as comfortable as anybody. If we'd staid awhile, I +reckon we'd had some niggers. B' George, we'll have to barricade +our doors to-night, or some of these ducks will be trying to +sleep with us."</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch47"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must +observe the style of its funerals and know what manner of men +they bury with most ceremony. I cannot say which class we buried +with most eclat in our "flush times," the distinguished public +benefactor or the distinguished rough—possibly the two chief +grades or grand divisions of society honored their illustrious +dead about equally; and hence, no doubt the philosopher I have +quoted from would have needed to see two representative funerals +in Virginia before forming his estimate of the people.</p> + +<p>There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was +a representative citizen. He had "killed his man"—not in his own +quarrel, it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset +by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the +proprietor of a dashing helpmeet whom he could have discarded +without the formality of a divorce. He had held a high position +in the fire department and been a very Warwick in politics. When +he died there was great lamentation throughout the town, but +especially in the vast bottom-stratum of society.</p> + +<p>On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium +of a wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself +through the body, cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story +window and broken his neck—and after due deliberation, the jury, +sad and tearful, but with intelligence unblinded by its sorrow, +brought in a verdict of death "by the visitation of God." What +could the world do without juries?</p> + +<p>Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the +vehicles in town were hired, all the saloons put in mourning, all +the municipal and fire-company flags hung at half-mast, and all +the firemen ordered to muster in uniform and bring their machines +duly draped in black. Now—let us remark in parenthesis—as all +the peoples of the earth had representative adventurers in the +Silverland, and as each adventurer had brought the slang of his +nation or his locality with him, the combination made the slang +of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely varied and copious +that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps, except in +the mines of California in the "early days." Slang was the +language of Nevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, +and be understood. Such phrases as "You bet!" "Oh, no, I reckon +not!" "No Irish need apply," and a hundred others, became so +common as to fall from the lips of a speaker unconsciously—and +very often when they did not touch the subject under discussion +and consequently failed to mean anything.</p> + +<p>After Buck Fanshaw's inquest, a meeting of the short-haired +brotherhood was held, for nothing can be done on the Pacific +coast without a public meeting and an expression of sentiment. +Regretful resolutions were passed and various committees +appointed; among others, a committee of one was deputed to call +on the minister, a fragile, gentle, spiritual new fledgling from +an Eastern theological seminary, and as yet unacquainted with the +ways of the mines. The committeeman, "Scotty" Briggs, made his +visit; and in after days it was worth something to hear the +minister tell about it. Scotty was a stalwart rough, whose +customary suit, when on weighty official business, like committee +work, was a fire helmet, flaming red flannel shirt, patent +leather belt with spanner and revolver attached, coat hung over +arm, and pants stuffed into boot tops. He formed something of a +contrast to the pale theological student. It is fair to say of +Scotty, however, in passing, that he had a warm heart, and a +strong love for his friends, and never entered into a quarrel +when he could reasonably keep out of it. Indeed, it was commonly +said that whenever one of Scotty's fights was investigated, it +always turned out that it had originally been no affair of his, +but that out of native good-heartedness he had dropped in of his +own accord to help the man who was getting the worst of it. He +and Buck Fanshaw were bosom friends, for years, and had often +taken adventurous "pot-luck" together. On one occasion, they had +thrown off their coats and taken the weaker side in a fight among +strangers, and after gaining a hard-earned victory, turned and +found that the men they were helping had deserted early, and not +only that, but had stolen their coats and made off with them! But +to return to Scotty's visit to the minister. He was on a +sorrowful mission, now, and his face was the picture of woe. +Being admitted to the presence he sat down before the clergyman, +placed his fire-hat on an unfinished manuscript sermon under the +minister's nose, took from it a red silk handkerchief, wiped his +brow and heaved a sigh of dismal impressiveness, explanatory of +his business.</p> + +<p>He choked, and even shed tears; but with an effort he mastered +his voice and said in lugubrious tones:</p> + +<p>"Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door?"</p> + +<p>"Am I the—pardon me, I believe I do not understand?"</p> + +<p>With another sigh and a half-sob, Scotty rejoined:</p> + +<p>"Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought +maybe you would give us a lift, if we'd tackle you—that is, if +I've got the rights of it and you are the head clerk of the +doxology-works next door."</p> + +<p>"I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next +door."</p> + +<p>"The which?"</p> + +<p>"The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers +whose sanctuary adjoins these premises."</p> + +<a name="331"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="331.jpg (76K)" src="images/331.jpg" height="431" width="561"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then +said:</p> + +<p>"You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't call that +hand. Ante and pass the buck."</p> + +<p>"How? I beg pardon. What did I understand you to say?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. Or maybe we've both +got the bulge, somehow. You don't smoke me and I don't smoke you. +You see, one of the boys has passed in his checks and we want to +give him a good send- off, and so the thing I'm on now is to +roust out somebody to jerk a little chin-music for us and waltz +him through handsome."</p> + +<p>"My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your +observations are wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot you +simplify them in some way? At first I thought perhaps I +understood you, but I grope now. Would it not expedite matters if +you restricted yourself to categorical statements of fact +unencumbered with obstructing accumulations of metaphor and +allegory?"</p> + +<p>Another pause, and more reflection. Then, said Scotty:</p> + +<p>"I'll have to pass, I judge."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"You've raised me out, pard."</p> + +<p>"I still fail to catch your meaning."</p> + +<p>"Why, that last lead of yourn is too many for me—that's the +idea. I can't neither-trump nor follow suit."</p> + +<p>The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty leaned +his head on his hand and gave himself up to thought.</p> + +<p>Presently his face came up, sorrowful but confident.</p> + +<p>"I've got it now, so's you can savvy," he said. "What we want +is a gospel-sharp. See?"</p> + +<p>"A what?"</p> + +<p>"Gospel-sharp. Parson."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a clergyman—a +parson."</p> + +<p>"Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle it like a man. +Put it there!"—extending a brawny paw, which closed over the +minister's small hand and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal +sympathy and fervent gratification.</p> + +<p>"Now we're all right, pard. Let's start fresh. Don't you mind +my snuffling a little—becuz we're in a power of trouble. You +see, one of the boys has gone up the flume—"</p> + +<p>"Gone where?"</p> + +<p>"Up the flume—throwed up the sponge, you understand."</p> + +<p>"Thrown up the sponge?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—kicked the bucket—"</p> + +<p>"Ah—has departed to that mysterious country from whose bourne +no traveler returns."</p> + +<p>"Return! I reckon not. Why pard, he's dead!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might be getting tangled +some more. Yes, you see he's dead again—"</p> + +<p>"Again? Why, has he ever been dead before?"</p> + +<p>"Dead before? No! Do you reckon a man has got as many lives as +a cat? But you bet you he's awful dead now, poor old boy, and I +wish I'd never seen this day. I don't want no better friend than +Buck Fanshaw. I knowed him by the back; and when I know a man and +like him, I freeze to him—you hear me. Take him all round, pard, +there never was a bullier man in the mines. No man ever knowed +Buck Fanshaw to go back on a friend. But it's all up, you know, +it's all up. It ain't no use. They've scooped him."</p> + +<p>"Scooped him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—death has. Well, well, well, we've got to give him up. +Yes indeed. It's a kind of a hard world, after all, ain't it? But +pard, he was a rustler! You ought to seen him get started once. +He was a bully boy with a glass eye! Just spit in his face and +give him room according to his strength, and it was just +beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was the worst son of a +thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was on it! He was on it +bigger than an Injun!"</p> + +<p>"On it? On what?"</p> + +<p>"On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. +He didn't give a continental for any body. Beg your pardon, +friend, for coming so near saying a cuss-word—but you see I'm on +an awful strain, in this palaver, on account of having to cramp +down and draw everything so mild. But we've got to give him up. +There ain't any getting around that, I don't reckon. Now if we +can get you to help plant him—"</p> + +<p>"Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the obsequies?"</p> + +<p>"Obs'quies is good. Yes. That's it—that's our little game. We +are going to get the thing up regardless, you know. He was always +nifty himself, and so you bet you his funeral ain't going to be +no slouch—solid silver door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on +the hearse, and a nigger on the box in a biled shirt and a plug +hat—how's that for high? And we'll take care of you, pard. We'll +fix you all right. There'll be a kerridge for you; and whatever +you want, you just 'scape out and we'll 'tend to it. We've got a +shebang fixed up for you to stand behind, in No. 1's house, and +don't you be afraid. Just go in and toot your horn, if you don't +sell a clam. Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for +anybody that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the +whitest men that was ever in the mines. You can't draw it too +strong. He never could stand it to see things going wrong. He's +done more to make this town quiet and peaceable than any man in +it. I've seen him lick four Greasers in eleven minutes, myself. +If a thing wanted regulating, he warn't a man to go browsing +around after somebody to do it, but he would prance in and +regulate it himself. He warn't a Catholic. Scasely. He was down +on 'em. His word was, 'No Irish need apply!' But it didn't make +no difference about that when it came down to what a man's rights +was—and so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic bone-yard and +started in to stake out town-lots in it he went for 'em! And he +cleaned 'em, too! I was there, pard, and I seen it myself."</p> + +<a name="335"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="335.jpg (105K)" src="images/335.jpg" height="530" width="623"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"That was very well indeed—at least the impulse was—whether +the act was strictly defensible or not. Had deceased any +religious convictions? That is to say, did he feel a dependence +upon, or acknowledge allegiance to a higher power?"</p> + +<p>More reflection.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you've stumped me again, pard. Could you say it over +once more, and say it slow?"</p> + +<p>"Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he ever +been connected with any organization sequestered from secular +concerns and devoted to self-sacrifice in the interests of +morality?"</p> + +<p>"All down but nine—set 'em up on the other alley, pard."</p> + +<p>"What did I understand you to say?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you're most too many for me, you know. When you get in +with your left I hunt grass every time. Every time you draw, you +fill; but I don't seem to have any luck. Lets have a new +deal."</p> + +<p>"How? Begin again?"</p> + +<p>"That's it."</p> + +<p>"Very well. Was he a good man, and—"</p> + +<p>"There—I see that; don't put up another chip till I look at +my hand. A good man, says you? Pard, it ain't no name for it. He +was the best man that ever—pard, you would have doted on that +man. He could lam any galoot of his inches in America. It was him +that put down the riot last election before it got a start; and +everybody said he was the only man that could have done it. He +waltzed in with a spanner in one hand and a trumpet in the other, +and sent fourteen men home on a shutter in less than three +minutes. He had that riot all broke up and prevented nice before +anybody ever got a chance to strike a blow. He was always for +peace, and he would have peace—he could not stand disturbances. +Pard, he was a great loss to this town. It would please the boys +if you could chip in something like that and do him justice. Here +once when the Micks got to throwing stones through the Methodis' +Sunday school windows, Buck Fanshaw, all of his own notion, shut +up his saloon and took a couple of six-shooters and mounted guard +over the Sunday school. Says he, 'No Irish need apply!' And they +didn't. He was the bulliest man in the mountains, pard! He could +run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and hold more tangle-foot +whisky without spilling it than any man in seventeen counties. +Put that in, pard—it'll please the boys more than anything you +could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his +mother."</p> + +<a name="337"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="337.jpg (60K)" src="images/337.jpg" height="414" width="449"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"Never shook his mother?"</p> + +<p>"That's it—any of the boys will tell you so."</p> + +<p>"Well, but why should he shake her?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I say—but some people does."</p> + +<p>"Not people of any repute?"</p> + +<p>"Well, some that averages pretty so-so."</p> + +<p>"In my opinion the man that would offer personal violence to +his own mother, ought to—"</p> + +<p>"Cheese it, pard; you've banked your ball clean outside the +string. What I was a drivin' at, was, that he never throwed off +on his mother—don't you see? No indeedy. He give her a house to +live in, and town lots, and plenty of money; and he looked after +her and took care of her all the time; and when she was down with +the small-pox I'm d—-d if he didn't set up nights and nuss her +himself! Beg your pardon for saying it, but it hopped out too +quick for yours truly.</p> + +<p>"You've treated me like a gentleman, pard, and I ain't the man +to hurt your feelings intentional. I think you're white. I think +you're a square man, pard. I like you, and I'll lick any man that +don't. I'll lick him till he can't tell himself from a last +year's corpse! Put it there!" [Another fraternal hand-shake—and +exit.]</p> + +<p>The obsequies were all that "the boys" could desire. Such a +marvel of funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The +plumed hearse, the dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts +of business, the flags drooping at half mast, the long, plodding +procession of uniformed secret societies, military battalions and +fire companies, draped engines, carriages of officials, and +citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted multitudes of +spectators to the sidewalks, roofs and windows; and for years +afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display +in Virginia was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw's +funeral.</p> + +<p>Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a +prominent place at the funeral, and when the sermon was finished +and the last sentence of the prayer for the dead man's soul +ascended, he responded, in a low voice, but with feelings:</p> + +<p>"AMEN. No Irish need apply."</p> + +<p>As the bulk of the response was without apparent relevancy, it +was probably nothing more than a humble tribute to the memory of +the friend that was gone; for, as Scotty had once said, it was +"his word."</p> + +<p>Scotty Briggs, in after days, achieved the distinction of +becoming the only convert to religion that was ever gathered from +the Virginia roughs; and it transpired that the man who had it in +him to espouse the quarrel of the weak out of inborn nobility of +spirit was no mean timber whereof to construct a Christian. The +making him one did not warp his generosity or diminish his +courage; on the contrary it gave intelligent direction to the one +and a broader field to the other.</p> + +<p>If his Sunday-school class progressed faster than the other +classes, was it matter for wonder? I think not. He talked to his +pioneer small-fry in a language they understood! It was my large +privilege, a month before he died, to hear him tell the beautiful +story of Joseph and his brethren to his class "without looking at +the book." I leave it to the reader to fancy what it was like, as +it fell, riddled with slang, from the lips of that grave, earnest +teacher, and was listened to by his little learners with a +consuming interest that showed that they were as unconscious as +he was that any violence was being done to the sacred +proprieties!</p> + +<a name="338"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="338.jpg (52K)" src="images/338.jpg" height="354" width="482"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch48"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>The first twenty-six graves in the Virginia cemetery were +occupied by murdered men. So everybody said, so everybody +believed, and so they will always say and believe. The reason why +there was so much slaughtering done, was, that in a new mining +district the rough element predominates, and a person is not +respected until he has "killed his man." That was the very +expression used.</p> + +<p>If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if he +was capable, honest, industrious, but—had he killed his man? If +he had not, he gravitated to his natural and proper position, +that of a man of small consequence; if he had, the cordiality of +his reception was graduated according to the number of his dead. +It was tedious work struggling up to a position of influence with +bloodless hands; but when a man came with the blood of half a +dozen men on his soul, his worth was recognized at once and his +acquaintance sought.</p> + +<p>In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, the +chief desperado, the chief gambler, and the saloon keeper, +occupied the same level in society, and it was the highest. The +cheapest and easiest way to become an influential man and be +looked up to by the community at large, was to stand behind a +bar, wear a cluster-diamond pin, and sell whisky. I am not sure +but that the saloon-keeper held a shade higher rank than any +other member of society. His opinion had weight. It was his +privilege to say how the elections should go. No great movement +could succeed without the countenance and direction of the +saloon- keepers. It was a high favor when the chief saloon-keeper +consented to serve in the legislature or the board of +aldermen.</p> + +<p>Youthful ambition hardly aspired so much to the honors of the +law, or the army and navy as to the dignity of proprietorship in +a saloon.</p> + +<p>To be a saloon-keeper and kill a man was to be illustrious. +Hence the reader will not be surprised to learn that more than +one man was killed in Nevada under hardly the pretext of +provocation, so impatient was the slayer to achieve reputation +and throw off the galling sense of being held in indifferent +repute by his associates. I knew two youths who tried to "kill +their men" for no other reason—and got killed themselves for +their pains. "There goes the man that killed Bill Adams" was +higher praise and a sweeter sound in the ears of this sort of +people than any other speech that admiring lips could utter.</p> + +<a name="340"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="340.jpg (115K)" src="images/340.jpg" height="667" width="603"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The men who murdered Virginia's original twenty-six +cemetery-occupants were never punished. Why? Because Alfred the +Great, when he invented trial by jury and knew that he had +admirably framed it to secure justice in his age of the world, +was not aware that in the nineteenth century the condition of +things would be so entirely changed that unless he rose from the +grave and altered the jury plan to meet the emergency, it would +prove the most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating +justice that human wisdom could contrive. For how could he +imagine that we simpletons would go on using his jury plan after +circumstances had stripped it of its usefulness, any more than he +could imagine that we would go on using his candle-clock after we +had invented chronometers? In his day news could not travel fast, +and hence he could easily find a jury of honest, intelligent men +who had not heard of the case they were called to try—but in +our day of telegraphs and newspapers his plan compels us to swear +in juries composed of fools and rascals, because the system +rigidly excludes honest men and men of brains.</p> + +<p>I remember one of those sorrowful farces, in Virginia, which +we call a jury trial. A noted desperado killed Mr. B., a good +citizen, in the most wanton and cold-blooded way. Of course the +papers were full of it, and all men capable of reading, read +about it. And of course all men not deaf and dumb and idiotic, +talked about it. A jury-list was made out, and Mr. B. L., a +prominent banker and a valued citizen, was questioned precisely +as he would have been questioned in any court in America:</p> + +<p>"Have you heard of this homicide?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Have you held conversations upon the subject?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Have you formed or expressed opinions about it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Have you read the newspaper accounts of it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"We do not want you."</p> + +<p>A minister, intelligent, esteemed, and greatly respected; a +merchant of high character and known probity; a mining +superintendent of intelligence and unblemished reputation; a +quartz mill owner of excellent standing, were all questioned in +the same way, and all set aside. Each said the public talk and +the newspaper reports had not so biased his mind but that sworn +testimony would overthrow his previously formed opinions and +enable him to render a verdict without prejudice and in +accordance with the facts. But of course such men could not be +trusted with the case. Ignoramuses alone could mete out unsullied +justice.</p> + +<p>When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of +twelve men was impaneled—a jury who swore they had neither +heard, read, talked about nor expressed an opinion concerning a +murder which the very cattle in the corrals, the Indians in the +sage-brush and the stones in the streets were cognizant of! It +was a jury composed of two desperadoes, two low beer-house +politicians, three bar-keepers, two ranchmen who could not read, +and three dull, stupid, human donkeys! It actually came out +afterward, that one of these latter thought that incest and arson +were the same thing.</p> + +<a name="342"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="342.jpg (52K)" src="images/342.jpg" height="285" width="597"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The verdict rendered by this jury was, Not Guilty. What else +could one expect?</p> + +<p>The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and +a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is a shame +that we must continue to use a worthless system because it was +good a thousand years ago. In this age, when a gentleman of high +social standing, intelligence and probity, swears that testimony +given under solemn oath will outweigh, with him, street talk and +newspaper reports based upon mere hearsay, he is worth a hundred +jurymen who will swear to their own ignorance and stupidity, and +justice would be far safer in his hands than in theirs. Why could +not the jury law be so altered as to give men of brains and +honesty and equal chance with fools and miscreants? Is it right +to show the present favoritism to one class of men and inflict a +disability on another, in a land whose boast is that all its +citizens are free and equal? I am a candidate for the +legislature. I desire to tamper with the jury law. I wish to so +alter it as to put a premium on intelligence and character, and +close the jury box against idiots, blacklegs, and people who do +not read newspapers. But no doubt I shall be defeated—every +effort I make to save the country "misses fire."</p> + +<p>My idea, when I began this chapter, was to say something about +desperadoism in the "flush times" of Nevada. To attempt a +portrayal of that era and that land, and leave out the blood and +carnage, would be like portraying Mormondom and leaving out +polygamy. The desperado stalked the streets with a swagger graded +according to the number of his homicides, and a nod of +recognition from him was sufficient to make a humble admirer +happy for the rest of the day. The deference that was paid to a +desperado of wide reputation, and who "kept his private +graveyard," as the phrase went, was marked, and cheerfully +accorded. When he moved along the sidewalk in his excessively +long-tailed frock- coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty +little slouch hat tipped over left eye, the small-fry roughs made +room for his majesty; when he entered the restaurant, the waiters +deserted bankers and merchants to overwhelm him with obsequious +service; when he shouldered his way to a bar, the shouldered +parties wheeled indignantly, recognized him, +and—apologized.</p> + +<p>They got a look in return that froze their marrow, and by that +time a curled and breast-pinned bar keeper was beaming over the +counter, proud of the established acquaintanceship that permitted +such a familiar form of speech as:</p> + +<p>"How're ye, Billy, old fel? Glad to see you. What'll you +take—the old thing?"</p> + +<p>The "old thing" meant his customary drink, of course.</p> + +<a name="344"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="344.jpg (47K)" src="images/344.jpg" height="452" width="406"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The best known names in the Territory of Nevada were those +belonging to these long-tailed heroes of the revolver. Orators, +Governors, capitalists and leaders of the legislature enjoyed a +degree of fame, but it seemed local and meagre when contrasted +with the fame of such men as Sam Brown, Jack Williams, Billy +Mulligan, Farmer Pease, Sugarfoot Mike, Pock Marked Jake, El +Dorado Johnny, Jack McNabb, Joe McGee, Jack Harris, Six-fingered +Pete, etc., etc. There was a long list of them. They were brave, +reckless men, and traveled with their lives in their hands. To +give them their due, they did their killing principally among +themselves, and seldom molested peaceable citizens, for they +considered it small credit to add to their trophies so cheap a +bauble as the death of a man who was "not on the shoot," as they +phrased it. They killed each other on slight provocation, and +hoped and expected to be killed themselves—for they held it +almost shame to die otherwise than "with their boots on," as they +expressed it.</p> + +<p>I remember an instance of a desperado's contempt for such +small game as a private citizen's life. I was taking a late +supper in a restaurant one night, with two reporters and a little +printer named—Brown, for instance—any name will do. Presently a +stranger with a long-tailed coat on came in, and not noticing +Brown's hat, which was lying in a chair, sat down on it. Little +Brown sprang up and became abusive in a moment. The stranger +smiled, smoothed out the hat, and offered it to Brown with +profuse apologies couched in caustic sarcasm, and begged Brown +not to destroy him. Brown threw off his coat and challenged the +man to fight—abused him, threatened him, impeached his courage, +and urged and even implored him to fight; and in the meantime the +smiling stranger placed himself under our protection in mock +distress. But presently he assumed a serious tone, and said:</p> + +<p>"Very well, gentlemen, if we must fight, we must, I suppose. +But don't rush into danger and then say I gave you no warning. I +am more than a match for all of you when I get started. I will +give you proofs, and then if my friend here still insists, I will +try to accommodate him."</p> + +<p>The table we were sitting at was about five feet long, and +unusually cumbersome and heavy. He asked us to put our hands on +the dishes and hold them in their places a moment—one of them +was a large oval dish with a portly roast on it. Then he sat +down, tilted up one end of the table, set two of the legs on his +knees, took the end of the table between his teeth, took his +hands away, and pulled down with his teeth till the table came up +to a level position, dishes and all! He said he could lift a keg +of nails with his teeth. He picked up a common glass tumbler and +bit a semi-circle out of it. Then he opened his bosom and showed +us a net-work of knife and bullet scars; showed us more on his +arms and face, and said he believed he had bullets enough in his +body to make a pig of lead. He was armed to the teeth. He closed +with the remark that he was Mr.——of Cariboo—a celebrated +name whereat we shook in our shoes. I would publish the name, but +for the suspicion that he might come and carve me. He finally +inquired if Brown still thirsted for blood. Brown turned the +thing over in his mind a moment, and then—asked him to +supper.</p> + +<a name="346"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="346.jpg (73K)" src="images/346.jpg" height="442" width="601"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>With the permission of the reader, I will group together, in +the next chapter, some samples of life in our small mountain +village in the old days of desperadoism. I was there at the time. +The reader will observe peculiarities in our official society; +and he will observe also, an instance of how, in new countries, +murders breed murders.</p> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch49"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>An extract or two from the newspapers of the day will furnish +a photograph that can need no embellishment:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>FATAL SHOOTING AFFRAY.—An affray occurred, last evening, in a +billiard saloon on C street, between Deputy Marshal Jack Williams +and Wm. Brown, which resulted in the immediate death of the +latter. There had been some difficulty between the parties for +several months.</p> + +<p>An inquest was immediately held, and the following testimony +adduced:</p> + +<p>Officer GEO. BIRDSALL, sworn, says:—I was told Wm. Brown was +drunk and was looking for Jack Williams; so soon as I heard that +I started for the parties to prevent a collision; went into the +billiard saloon; saw Billy Brown running around, saying if +anybody had anything against him to show cause; he was talking in +a boisterous manner, and officer Perry took him to the other end +of the room to talk to him; Brown came back to me; remarked to me +that he thought he was as good as anybody, and knew how to take +care of himself; he passed by me and went to the bar; don't know +whether he drank or not; Williams was at the end of the +billiard-table, next to the stairway; Brown, after going to the +bar, came back and said he was as good as any man in the world; +he had then walked out to the end of the first billiard-table +from the bar; I moved closer to them, supposing there would be a +fight; as Brown drew his pistol I caught hold of it; he had fired +one shot at Williams; don't know the effect of it; caught hold of +him with one hand, and took hold of the pistol and turned it up; +think he fired once after I caught hold of the pistol; I wrenched +the pistol from him; walked to the end of the billiard-table and +told a party that I had Brown's pistol, and to stop shooting; I +think four shots were fired in all; after walking out, Mr. Foster +remarked that Brown was shot dead.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Oh, there was no excitement about it—he merely "remarked" the +small circumstance!</p> + +<p>Four months later the following item appeared in the same +paper (the Enterprise). In this item the name of one of the city +officers above referred to (Deputy Marshal Jack Williams) occurs +again:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>ROBBERY AND DESPERATE AFFRAY.—On Tuesday night, a German +named Charles Hurtzal, engineer in a mill at Silver City, came to +this place, and visited the hurdy-gurdy house on B street. The +music, dancing and Teutonic maidens awakened memories of +Faderland until our German friend was carried away with rapture. +He evidently had money, and was spending if freely. Late in the +evening Jack Williams and Andy Blessington invited him down +stairs to take a cup of coffee. Williams proposed a game of cards +and went up stairs to procure a deck, but not finding any +returned. On the stairway he met the German, and drawing his +pistol knocked him down and rifled his pockets of some seventy +dollars. Hurtzal dared give no alarm, as he was told, with a +pistol at his head, if he made any noise or exposed them, they +would blow his brains out. So effectually was he frightened that +he made no complaint, until his friends forced him. Yesterday a +warrant was issued, but the culprits had disappeared.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>This efficient city officer, Jack Williams, had the common +reputation of being a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. It +was said that he had several times drawn his revolver and levied +money contributions on citizens at dead of night in the public +streets of Virginia.</p> + +<p>Five months after the above item appeared, Williams was +assassinated while sitting at a card table one night; a gun was +thrust through the crack of the door and Williams dropped from +his chair riddled with balls. It was said, at the time, that +Williams had been for some time aware that a party of his own +sort (desperadoes) had sworn away his life; and it was generally +believed among the people that Williams's friends and enemies +would make the assassination memorable—and useful, too—by a +wholesale destruction of each other.</p> + +<p>It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull during +the next twenty-four hours, for within that time a woman was +killed by a pistol shot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and +a man named Reeder was also disposed of permanently. Some matters +in the Enterprise account of the killing of Reeder are worth +nothing—especially the accommodating complaisance of a Virginia +justice of the peace. The italics in the following narrative are +mine:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>MORE CUTTING AND SHOOTING.—The devil seems to have again +broken loose in our town. Pistols and guns explode and knives +gleam in our streets as in early times. When there has been a +long season of quiet, people are slow to wet their hands in +blood; but once blood is spilled, cutting and shooting come easy. +Night before last Jack Williams was assassinated, and yesterday +forenoon we had more bloody work, growing out of the killing of +Williams, and on the same street in which he met his death. It +appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of Williams, and George Gumbert +were talking, at the meat market of the latter, about the killing +of Williams the previous night, when Reeder said it was a most +cowardly act to shoot a man in such a way, giving him "no show." +Gumbert said that Williams had "as good a show as he gave Billy +Brown," meaning the man killed by Williams last March. Reeder +said it was a d—-d lie, that Williams had no show at all. At +this, Gumbert drew a knife and stabbed Reeder, cutting him in two +places in the back. One stroke of the knife cut into the sleeve +of Reeder's coat and passed downward in a slanting direction +through his clothing, and entered his body at the small of the +back; another blow struck more squarely, and made a much more +dangerous wound. Gumbert gave himself up to the officers of +justice, and was shortly after discharged by Justice Atwill, on +his own recognizance, to appear for trial at six o'clock in the +evening. In the meantime Reeder had been taken into the office of +Dr. Owens, where his wounds were properly dressed. One of his +wounds was considered quite dangerous, and it was thought by many +that it would prove fatal. But being considerably under the +influence of liquor, Reeder did not feel his wounds as he +otherwise would, and he got up and went into the street. He went +to the meat market and renewed his quarrel with Gumbert, +threatening his life. Friends tried to interfere to put a stop to +the quarrel and get the parties away from each other. In the +Fashion Saloon Reeder made threats against the life of Gumbert, +saying he would kill him, and it is said that he requested the +officers not to arrest Gumbert, as he intended to kill him. After +these threats Gumbert went off and procured a double- barreled +shot gun, loaded with buck-shot or revolver balls, and went after +Reeder. Two or three persons were assisting him along the street, +trying to get him home, and had him just in front of the store of +Klopstock & Harris, when Gumbert came across toward him from the +opposite side of the street with his gun. He came up within about +ten or fifteen feet of Reeder, and called out to those with him +to "look out! get out of the way!" and they had only time to heed +the warning, when he fired. Reeder was at the time attempting to +screen himself behind a large cask, which stood against the +awning post of Klopstock & Harris's store, but some of the balls +took effect in the lower part of his breast, and he reeled around +forward and fell in front of the cask. Gumbert then raised his +gun and fired the second barrel, which missed Reeder and entered +the ground. At the time that this occurred, there were a great +many persons on the street in the vicinity, and a number of them +called out to Gumbert, when they saw him raise his gun, to "hold +on," and "don't shoot!" The cutting took place about ten o'clock +and the shooting about twelve. After the shooting the street was +instantly crowded with the inhabitants of that part of the town, +some appearing much excited and laughing—declaring that it +looked like the "good old times of '60." Marshal Perry and +officer Birdsall were near when the shooting occurred, and +Gumbert was immediately arrested and his gun taken from him, when +he was marched off to jail. Many persons who were attracted to +the spot where this bloody work had just taken place, looked +bewildered and seemed to be asking themselves what was to happen +next, appearing in doubt as to whether the killing mania had +reached its climax, or whether we were to turn in and have a +grand killing spell, shooting whoever might have given us +offence. It was whispered around that it was not all over +yet—five or six more were to be killed before night. Reeder was taken +to the Virginia City Hotel, and doctors called in to examine his +wounds. They found that two or three balls had entered his right +side; one of them appeared to have passed through the substance +of the lungs, while another passed into the liver. Two balls were +also found to have struck one of his legs. As some of the balls +struck the cask, the wounds in Reeder's leg were probably from +these, glancing downwards, though they might have been caused by +the second shot fired. After being shot, Reeder said when he got +on his feet—smiling as he spoke—"It will take better shooting +than that to kill me." The doctors consider it almost impossible +for him to recover, but as he has an excellent constitution he +may survive, notwithstanding the number and dangerous character +of the wounds he has received. The town appears to be perfectly +quiet at present, as though the late stormy times had cleared our +moral atmosphere; but who can tell in what quarter clouds are +lowering or plots ripening?</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Reeder—or at least what was left of him—survived his wounds +two days! Nothing was ever done with Gumbert.</p> + +<p>Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know +what a palladium is, having never seen a palladium, but it is a +good thing no doubt at any rate. Not less than a hundred men have +been murdered in Nevada—perhaps I would be within bounds if I +said three hundred—and as far as I can learn, only two persons +have suffered the death penalty there. However, four or five who +had no money and no political influence have been punished by +imprisonment—one languished in prison as much as eight months, I +think. However, I do not desire to be extravagant—it may have +been less.</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>However, one prophecy was verified, at any rate. It was +asserted by the desperadoes that one of their brethren (Joe +McGee, a special policeman) was known to be the conspirator +chosen by lot to assassinate Williams; and they also asserted +that doom had been pronounced against McGee, and that he would be +assassinated in exactly the same manner that had been adopted for +the destruction of Williams—a prophecy which came true a year +later. After twelve months of distress (for McGee saw a fancied +assassin in every man that approached him), he made the last of +many efforts to get out of the country unwatched. He went to +Carson and sat down in a saloon to wait for the stage—it would +leave at four in the morning. But as the night waned and the +crowd thinned, he grew uneasy, and told the bar-keeper that +assassins were on his track. The bar-keeper told him to stay in +the middle of the room, then, and not go near the door, or the +window by the stove. But a fatal fascination seduced him to the +neighborhood of the stove every now and then, and repeatedly the +bar- keeper brought him back to the middle of the room and warned +him to remain there. But he could not. At three in the morning he +again returned to the stove and sat down by a stranger. Before +the bar-keeper could get to him with another warning whisper, +some one outside fired through the window and riddled McGee's +breast with slugs, killing him almost instantly. By the same +discharge the stranger at McGee's side also received attentions +which proved fatal in the course of two or three days.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<a name="351"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="351.jpg (9K)" src="images/351.jpg" height="330" width="161"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch50"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER L.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>These murder and jury statistics remind me of a certain very +extraordinary trial and execution of twenty years ago; it is a +scrap of history familiar to all old Californians, and worthy to +be known by other peoples of the earth that love simple, +straightforward justice unencumbered with nonsense. I would +apologize for this digression but for the fact that the +information I am about to offer is apology enough in itself. And +since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is as well to +eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their growing +irksome.</p> + +<p>Capt. Ned Blakely—that name will answer as well as any other +fictitious one (for he was still with the living at last +accounts, and may not desire to be famous)—sailed ships out of +the harbor of San Francisco for many years. He was a stalwart, +warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who had been a sailor nearly +fifty years—a sailor from early boyhood. He was a rough, honest +creature, full of pluck, and just as full of hard-headed +simplicity, too. He hated trifling conventionalities—"business" +was the word, with him. He had all a sailor's vindictiveness +against the quips and quirks of the law, and steadfastly believed +that the first and last aim and object of the law and lawyers was +to defeat justice.</p> + +<p>He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of a guano ship. +He had a fine crew, but his negro mate was his pet—on him he had +for years lavished his admiration and esteem. It was Capt. Ned's +first voyage to the Chinchas, but his fame had gone before +him—the fame of being a man who would fight at the dropping of a +handkerchief, when imposed upon, and would stand no nonsense. It +was a fame well earned. Arrived in the islands, he found that the +staple of conversation was the exploits of one Bill Noakes, a +bully, the mate of a trading ship. This man had created a small +reign of terror there. At nine o'clock at night, Capt. Ned, all +alone, was pacing his deck in the starlight. A form ascended the +side, and approached him. Capt. Ned said:</p> + +<p>"Who goes there?"</p> + +<a name="353"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="353.jpg (77K)" src="images/353.jpg" height="495" width="603"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"I'm Bill Noakes, the best man in the islands."</p> + +<p>"What do you want aboard this ship?"</p> + +<p>"I've heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us is a better +man than 'tother—I'll know which, before I go ashore."</p> + +<p>"You've come to the right shop—I'm your man. I'll learn you +to come aboard this ship without an invite."</p> + +<p>He seized Noakes, backed him against the mainmast, pounded his +face to a pulp, and then threw him overboard.</p> + +<p>Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next night, got the +pulp renewed, and went overboard head first, as before.</p> + +<p>He was satisfied.</p> + +<p>A week after this, while Noakes was carousing with a sailor +crowd on shore, at noonday, Capt. Ned's colored mate came along, +and Noakes tried to pick a quarrel with him. The negro evaded the +trap, and tried to get away. Noakes followed him up; the negro +began to run; Noakes fired on him with a revolver and killed him. +Half a dozen sea-captains witnessed the whole affair. Noakes +retreated to the small after-cabin of his ship, with two other +bullies, and gave out that death would be the portion of any man +that intruded there. There was no attempt made to follow the +villains; there was no disposition to do it, and indeed very +little thought of such an enterprise. There were no courts and no +officers; there was no government; the islands belonged to Peru, +and Peru was far away; she had no official representative on the +ground; and neither had any other nation.</p> + +<p>However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head about such +things. They concerned him not. He was boiling with rage and +furious for justice. At nine o'clock at night he loaded a +double-barreled gun with slugs, fished out a pair of handcuffs, +got a ship's lantern, summoned his quartermaster, and went +ashore. He said:</p> + +<p>"Do you see that ship there at the dock?"</p> + +<p>"Ay-ay, sir."</p> + +<p>"It's the Venus."</p> + +<p>"Ay-ay, sir."</p> + +<p>"You—you know me."</p> + +<p>"Ay-ay, sir."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then. Take the lantern. Carry it just under your +chin. I'll walk behind you and rest this gun-barrel on your +shoulder, p'inting forward—so. Keep your lantern well up so's I +can see things ahead of you good. I'm going to march in on +Noakes—and take him—and jug the other chaps. If you +flinch—well, you know me."</p> + +<p>"Ay-ay, sir."</p> + +<p>In this order they filed aboard softly, arrived at Noakes's +den, the quartermaster pushed the door open, and the lantern +revealed the three desperadoes sitting on the floor. Capt. Ned +said:</p> + +<a name="355"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="355.jpg (93K)" src="images/355.jpg" height="478" width="594"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"I'm Ned Blakely. I've got you under fire. Don't you move +without orders—any of you. You two kneel down in the corner; +faces to the wall—now. Bill Noakes, put these handcuffs on; now +come up close. Quartermaster, fasten 'em. All right. Don't stir, +sir. Quartermaster, put the key in the outside of the door. Now, +men, I'm going to lock you two in; and if you try to burst +through this door—well, you've heard of me. Bill Noakes, fall in +ahead, and march. All set. Quartermaster, lock the door."</p> + +<p>Noakes spent the night on board Blakely's ship, a prisoner +under strict guard. Early in the morning Capt. Ned called in all +the sea-captains in the harbor and invited them, with nautical +ceremony, to be present on board his ship at nine o'clock to +witness the hanging of Noakes at the yard-arm!</p> + +<p>"What! The man has not been tried."</p> + +<p>"Of course he hasn't. But didn't he kill the nigger?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly he did; but you are not thinking of hanging him +without a trial?"</p> + +<p>"Trial! What do I want to try him for, if he killed the +nigger?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Capt. Ned, this will never do. Think how it will +sound."</p> + +<p>"Sound be hanged! Didn't he kill the nigger?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly, Capt. Ned,—nobody denies +that,—but—"</p> + +<p>"Then I'm going to hang him, that's all. Everybody I've talked +to talks just the same way you do. Everybody says he killed the +nigger, everybody knows he killed the nigger, and yet every +lubber of you wants him tried for it. I don't understand such +bloody foolishness as that. Tried! Mind you, I don't object to +trying him, if it's got to be done to give satisfaction; and I'll +be there, and chip in and help, too; but put it off till +afternoon—put it off till afternoon, for I'll have my hands +middling full till after the burying—"</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you mean? Are you going to hang him any how—and +try him afterward?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't I say I was going to hang him? I never saw such people +as you. What's the difference? You ask a favor, and then you +ain't satisfied when you get it. Before or after's all one—you +know how the trial will go. He killed the nigger. Say—I must be +going. If your mate would like to come to the hanging, fetch him +along. I like him."</p> + +<p>There was a stir in the camp. The captains came in a body and +pleaded with Capt. Ned not to do this rash thing. They promised +that they would create a court composed of captains of the best +character; they would empanel a jury; they would conduct +everything in a way becoming the serious nature of the business +in hand, and give the case an impartial hearing and the accused a +fair trial. And they said it would be murder, and punishable by +the American courts if he persisted and hung the accused on his +ship. They pleaded hard. Capt. Ned said:</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, I'm not stubborn and I'm not unreasonable. I'm +always willing to do just as near right as I can. How long will +it take?"</p> + +<p>"Probably only a little while."</p> + +<p>"And can I take him up the shore and hang him as soon as you +are done?"</p> + +<p>"If he is proven guilty he shall be hanged without unnecessary +delay."</p> + +<p>"If he's proven guilty. Great Neptune, ain't he guilty? This +beats my time. Why you all know he's guilty."</p> + +<p>But at last they satisfied him that they were projecting +nothing underhanded. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"Well, all right. You go on and try him and I'll go down and +overhaul his conscience and prepare him to go—like enough he +needs it, and I don't want to send him off without a show for +hereafter."</p> + +<p>This was another obstacle. They finally convinced him that it +was necessary to have the accused in court. Then they said they +would send a guard to bring him.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I prefer to fetch him myself—he don't get out of my +hands. Besides, I've got to go to the ship to get a rope, +anyway."</p> + +<p>The court assembled with due ceremony, empaneled a jury, and +presently Capt. Ned entered, leading the prisoner with one hand +and carrying a Bible and a rope in the other. He seated himself +by the side of his captive and told the court to "up anchor and +make sail." Then he turned a searching eye on the jury, and +detected Noakes's friends, the two bullies.</p> + +<p>He strode over and said to them confidentially:</p> + +<p>"You're here to interfere, you see. Now you vote right, do you +hear?—or else there'll be a double-barreled inquest here when +this trial's off, and your remainders will go home in a couple of +baskets."</p> + +<p>The caution was not without fruit. The jury was a unit—the +verdict. "Guilty."</p> + +<p>Capt. Ned sprung to his feet and said:</p> + +<p>"Come along—you're my meat now, my lad, anyway. Gentlemen +you've done yourselves proud. I invite you all to come and see +that I do it all straight. Follow me to the canyon, a mile above +here."</p> + +<p>The court informed him that a sheriff had been appointed to do +the hanging, and—</p> + +<p>Capt. Ned's patience was at an end. His wrath was boundless. +The subject of a sheriff was judiciously dropped.</p> + +<p>When the crowd arrived at the canyon, Capt. Ned climbed a tree +and arranged the halter, then came down and noosed his man. He +opened his Bible, and laid aside his hat. Selecting a chapter at +random, he read it through, in a deep bass voice and with sincere +solemnity. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"Lad, you are about to go aloft and give an account of +yourself; and the lighter a man's manifest is, as far as sin's +concerned, the better for him. Make a clean breast, man, and +carry a log with you that'll bear inspection. You killed the +nigger?"</p> + +<a name="358"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="358.jpg (61K)" src="images/358.jpg" height="480" width="370"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>No reply. A long pause.</p> + +<p>The captain read another chapter, pausing, from time to time, +to impress the effect. Then he talked an earnest, persuasive +sermon to him, and ended by repeating the question:</p> + +<p>"Did you kill the nigger?"</p> + +<p>No reply—other than a malignant scowl. The captain now read +the first and second chapters of Genesis, with deep +feeling—paused a moment, closed the book reverently, and said +with a perceptible savor of satisfaction:</p> + +<p>"There. Four chapters. There's few that would have took the +pains with you that I have."</p> + +<p>Then he swung up the condemned, and made the rope fast; stood +by and timed him half an hour with his watch, and then delivered +the body to the court. A little after, as he stood contemplating +the motionless figure, a doubt came into his face; evidently he +felt a twinge of conscience—a misgiving—and he said with a +sigh:</p> + +<p>"Well, p'raps I ought to burnt him, maybe. But I was trying to +do for the best."</p> + +<p>When the history of this affair reached California (it was in +the "early days") it made a deal of talk, but did not diminish +the captain's popularity in any degree. It increased it, indeed. +California had a population then that "inflicted" justice after a +fashion that was simplicity and primitiveness itself, and could +therefore admire appreciatively when the same fashion was +followed elsewhere.</p> + +<a name="359"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="359.jpg (38K)" src="images/359.jpg" height="458" width="323"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing It, Part 5. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 5. *** + +***** This file should be named 8586-h.htm or 8586-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/8/8586/ + +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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/dev/null +++ b/8586.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2644 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Roughing It, Part 5., 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 5. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 2, 2004 [EBook #8586] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 5. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + ROUGHING IT + + by Mark Twain + + 1880 + + Part 5. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +Captain Nye was very ill indeed, with spasmodic rheumatism. But the old +gentleman was himself--which is to say, he was kind-hearted and agreeable +when comfortable, but a singularly violent wild-cat when things did not +go well. He would be smiling along pleasantly enough, when a sudden +spasm of his disease would take him and he would go out of his smile into +a perfect fury. He would groan and wail and howl with the anguish, and +fill up the odd chinks with the most elaborate profanity that strong +convictions and a fine fancy could contrive. With fair opportunity he +could swear very well and handle his adjectives with considerable +judgment; but when the spasm was on him it was painful to listen to him, +he was so awkward. However, I had seen him nurse a sick man himself and +put up patiently with the inconveniences of the situation, and +consequently I was willing that he should have full license now that his +own turn had come. He could not disturb me, with all his raving and +ranting, for my mind had work on hand, and it labored on diligently, +night and day, whether my hands were idle or employed. I was altering +and amending the plans for my house, and thinking over the propriety of +having the billard-room in the attic, instead of on the same floor with +the dining-room; also, I was trying to decide between green and blue for +the upholstery of the drawing-room, for, although my preference was blue +I feared it was a color that would be too easily damaged by dust and +sunlight; likewise while I was content to put the coachman in a modest +livery, I was uncertain about a footman--I needed one, and was even +resolved to have one, but wished he could properly appear and perform his +functions out of livery, for I somewhat dreaded so much show; and yet, +inasmuch as my late grandfather had had a coachman and such things, but +no liveries, I felt rather drawn to beat him;--or beat his ghost, at any +rate; I was also systematizing the European trip, and managed to get it +all laid out, as to route and length of time to be devoted to it +--everything, with one exception--namely, whether to cross the desert from +Cairo to Jerusalem per camel, or go by sea to Beirut, and thence down +through the country per caravan. Meantime I was writing to the friends +at home every day, instructing them concerning all my plans and +intentions, and directing them to look up a handsome homestead for my +mother and agree upon a price for it against my coming, and also +directing them to sell my share of the Tennessee land and tender the +proceeds to the widows' and orphans' fund of the typographical union of +which I had long been a member in good standing. [This Tennessee land +had been in the possession of the family many years, and promised to +confer high fortune upon us some day; it still promises it, but in a less +violent way.] + +When I had been nursing the Captain nine days he was somewhat better, +but very feeble. During the afternoon we lifted him into a chair and +gave him an alcoholic vapor bath, and then set about putting him on the +bed again. We had to be exceedingly careful, for the least jar produced +pain. Gardiner had his shoulders and I his legs; in an unfortunate +moment I stumbled and the patient fell heavily on the bed in an agony of +torture. I never heard a man swear so in my life. He raved like a +maniac, and tried to snatch a revolver from the table--but I got it. +He ordered me out of the house, and swore a world of oaths that he would +kill me wherever he caught me when he got on his feet again. It was +simply a passing fury, and meant nothing. I knew he would forget it in +an hour, and maybe be sorry for it, too; but it angered me a little, at +the moment. So much so, indeed, that I determined to go back to +Esmeralda. I thought he was able to get along alone, now, since he was +on the war path. I took supper, and as soon as the moon rose, began my +nine-mile journey, on foot. + +Even millionaires needed no horses, in those days, for a mere nine-mile +jaunt without baggage. + +As I "raised the hill" overlooking the town, it lacked fifteen minutes of +twelve. I glanced at the hill over beyond the canyon, and in the bright +moonlight saw what appeared to be about half the population of the +village massed on and around the Wide West croppings. My heart gave an +exulting bound, and I said to myself, "They have made a new strike +to-night--and struck it richer than ever, no doubt." I started over +there, but gave it up. I said the "strick" would keep, and I had climbed +hill enough for one night. I went on down through the town, and as I was +passing a little German bakery, a woman ran out and begged me to come in +and help her. She said her husband had a fit. I went in, and judged she +was right--he appeared to have a hundred of them, compressed into one. +Two Germans were there, trying to hold him, and not making much of a +success of it. I ran up the street half a block or so and routed out a +sleeping doctor, brought him down half dressed, and we four wrestled with +the maniac, and doctored, drenched and bled him, for more than an hour, +and the poor German woman did the crying. He grew quiet, now, and the +doctor and I withdrew and left him to his friends. + +It was a little after one o'clock. As I entered the cabin door, tired +but jolly, the dingy light of a tallow candle revealed Higbie, sitting by +the pine table gazing stupidly at my note, which he held in his fingers, +and looking pale, old, and haggard. I halted, and looked at him. He +looked at me, stolidly. I said: + +"Higbie, what--what is it?" + +"We're ruined--we didn't do the work--THE BLIND LEAD'S RELOCATED!" + +It was enough. I sat down sick, grieved--broken-hearted, indeed. A +minute before, I was rich and brimful of vanity; I was a pauper now, and +very meek. We sat still an hour, busy with thought, busy with vain and +useless self-upbraidings, busy with "Why didn't I do this, and why didn't +I do that," but neither spoke a word. Then we dropped into mutual +explanations, and the mystery was cleared away. It came out that Higbie +had depended on me, as I had on him, and as both of us had on the +foreman. The folly of it! It was the first time that ever staid and +steadfast Higbie had left an important matter to chance or failed to be +true to his full share of a responsibility. + +But he had never seen my note till this moment, and this moment was the +first time he had been in the cabin since the day he had seen me last. +He, also, had left a note for me, on that same fatal afternoon--had +ridden up on horseback, and looked through the window, and being in a +hurry and not seeing me, had tossed the note into the cabin through a +broken pane. Here it was, on the floor, where it had remained +undisturbed for nine days: + + "Don't fail to do the work before the ten days expire. W. + has passed through and given me notice. I am to join him at + Mono Lake, and we shall go on from there to-night. He says + he will find it this time, sure. CAL." + +"W." meant Whiteman, of course. That thrice accursed "cement!" + +That was the way of it. An old miner, like Higbie, could no more +withstand the fascination of a mysterious mining excitement like this +"cement" foolishness, than he could refrain from eating when he was +famishing. Higbie had been dreaming about the marvelous cement for +months; and now, against his better judgment, he had gone off and "taken +the chances" on my keeping secure a mine worth a million undiscovered +cement veins. They had not been followed this time. His riding out of +town in broad daylight was such a common-place thing to do that it had +not attracted any attention. He said they prosecuted their search in the +fastnesses of the mountains during nine days, without success; they could +not find the cement. Then a ghastly fear came over him that something +might have happened to prevent the doing of the necessary work to hold +the blind lead (though indeed he thought such a thing hardly possible), +and forthwith he started home with all speed. He would have reached +Esmeralda in time, but his horse broke down and he had to walk a great +part of the distance. And so it happened that as he came into Esmeralda +by one road, I entered it by another. His was the superior energy, +however, for he went straight to the Wide West, instead of turning aside +as I had done--and he arrived there about five or ten minutes too late! +The "notice" was already up, the "relocation" of our mine completed +beyond recall, and the crowd rapidly dispersing. He learned some facts +before he left the ground. The foreman had not been seen about the +streets since the night we had located the mine--a telegram had called +him to California on a matter of life and death, it was said. At any +rate he had done no work and the watchful eyes of the community were +taking note of the fact. At midnight of this woful tenth day, the ledge +would be "relocatable," and by eleven o'clock the hill was black with men +prepared to do the relocating. That was the crowd I had seen when I +fancied a new "strike" had been made--idiot that I was. + +[We three had the same right to relocate the lead that other people had, +provided we were quick enough.] As midnight was announced, fourteen men, +duly armed and ready to back their proceedings, put up their "notice" and +proclaimed their ownership of the blind lead, under the new name of the +"Johnson." But A. D. Allen our partner (the foreman) put in a sudden +appearance about that time, with a cocked revolver in his hand, and said +his name must be added to the list, or he would "thin out the Johnson +company some." He was a manly, splendid, determined fellow, and known to +be as good as his word, and therefore a compromise was effected. They +put in his name for a hundred feet, reserving to themselves the customary +two hundred feet each. Such was the history of the night's events, as +Higbie gathered from a friend on the way home. + +Higbie and I cleared out on a new mining excitement the next morning, +glad to get away from the scene of our sufferings, and after a month or +two of hardship and disappointment, returned to Esmeralda once more. +Then we learned that the Wide West and the Johnson companies had +consolidated; that the stock, thus united, comprised five thousand feet, +or shares; that the foreman, apprehending tiresome litigation, and +considering such a huge concern unwieldy, had sold his hundred feet for +ninety thousand dollars in gold and gone home to the States to enjoy it. +If the stock was worth such a gallant figure, with five thousand shares +in the corporation, it makes me dizzy to think what it would have been +worth with only our original six hundred in it. It was the difference +between six hundred men owning a house and five thousand owning it. We +would have been millionaires if we had only worked with pick and spade +one little day on our property and so secured our ownership! + +It reads like a wild fancy sketch, but the evidence of many witnesses, +and likewise that of the official records of Esmeralda District, is +easily obtainable in proof that it is a true history. I can always have +it to say that I was absolutely and unquestionably worth a million +dollars, once, for ten days. + +A year ago my esteemed and in every way estimable old millionaire +partner, Higbie, wrote me from an obscure little mining camp in +California that after nine or ten years of buffetings and hard striving, +he was at last in a position where he could command twenty-five hundred +dollars, and said he meant to go into the fruit business in a modest way. +How such a thought would have insulted him the night we lay in our cabin +planning European trips and brown stone houses on Russian Hill! + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +What to do next? + +It was a momentous question. I had gone out into the world to shift for +myself, at the age of thirteen (for my father had endorsed for friends; +and although he left us a sumptuous legacy of pride in his fine Virginian +stock and its national distinction, I presently found that I could not +live on that alone without occasional bread to wash it down with). I had +gained a livelihood in various vocations, but had not dazzled anybody +with my successes; still the list was before me, and the amplest liberty +in the matter of choosing, provided I wanted to work--which I did not, +after being so wealthy. I had once been a grocery clerk, for one day, +but had consumed so much sugar in that time that I was relieved from +further duty by the proprietor; said he wanted me outside, so that he +could have my custom. I had studied law an entire week, and then given +it up because it was so prosy and tiresome. I had engaged briefly in the +study of blacksmithing, but wasted so much time trying to fix the bellows +so that it would blow itself, that the master turned me adrift in +disgrace, and told me I would come to no good. I had been a bookseller's +clerk for awhile, but the customers bothered me so much I could not read +with any comfort, and so the proprietor gave me a furlough and forgot to +put a limit to it. I had clerked in a drug store part of a summer, but +my prescriptions were unlucky, and we appeared to sell more stomach pumps +than soda water. So I had to go. I had made of myself a tolerable +printer, under the impression that I would be another Franklin some day, +but somehow had missed the connection thus far. There was no berth open +in the Esmeralda Union, and besides I had always been such a slow +compositor that I looked with envy upon the achievements of apprentices +of two years' standing; and when I took a "take," foremen were in the +habit of suggesting that it would be wanted "some time during the year." + +I was a good average St. Louis and New Orleans pilot and by no means +ashamed of my abilities in that line; wages were two hundred and fifty +dollars a month and no board to pay, and I did long to stand behind a +wheel again and never roam any more--but I had been making such an ass of +myself lately in grandiloquent letters home about my blind lead and my +European excursion that I did what many and many a poor disappointed +miner had done before; said "It is all over with me now, and I will never +go back home to be pitied--and snubbed." I had been a private secretary, +a silver miner and a silver mill operative, and amounted to less than +nothing in each, and now-- + +What to do next? + +I yielded to Higbie's appeals and consented to try the mining once more. +We climbed far up on the mountain side and went to work on a little +rubbishy claim of ours that had a shaft on it eight feet deep. Higbie +descended into it and worked bravely with his pick till he had loosened +up a deal of rock and dirt and then I went down with a long-handled +shovel (the most awkward invention yet contrived by man) to throw it out. +You must brace the shovel forward with the side of your knee till it is +full, and then, with a skilful toss, throw it backward over your left +shoulder. I made the toss, and landed the mess just on the edge of the +shaft and it all came back on my head and down the back of my neck. +I never said a word, but climbed out and walked home. I inwardly +resolved that I would starve before I would make a target of myself and +shoot rubbish at it with a long-handled shovel. + +I sat down, in the cabin, and gave myself up to solid misery--so to +speak. Now in pleasanter days I had amused myself with writing letters +to the chief paper of the Territory, the Virginia Daily Territorial +Enterprise, and had always been surprised when they appeared in print. +My good opinion of the editors had steadily declined; for it seemed to me +that they might have found something better to fill up with than my +literature. I had found a letter in the post office as I came home from +the hill side, and finally I opened it. Eureka! [I never did know what +Eureka meant, but it seems to be as proper a word to heave in as any when +no other that sounds pretty offers.] It was a deliberate offer to me of +Twenty-Five Dollars a week to come up to Virginia and be city editor of +the Enterprise. + +I would have challenged the publisher in the "blind lead" days--I wanted +to fall down and worship him, now. Twenty-Five Dollars a week--it looked +like bloated luxury--a fortune a sinful and lavish waste of money. +But my transports cooled when I thought of my inexperience and consequent +unfitness for the position--and straightway, on top of this, my long +array of failures rose up before me. Yet if I refused this place I must +presently become dependent upon somebody for my bread, a thing +necessarily distasteful to a man who had never experienced such a +humiliation since he was thirteen years old. Not much to be proud of, +since it is so common--but then it was all I had to be proud of. So I +was scared into being a city editor. I would have declined, otherwise. +Necessity is the mother of "taking chances." I do not doubt that if, at +that time, I had been offered a salary to translate the Talmud from the +original Hebrew, I would have accepted--albeit with diffidence and some +misgivings--and thrown as much variety into it as I could for the money. + +I went up to Virginia and entered upon my new vocation. I was a rusty +looking city editor, I am free to confess--coatless, slouch hat, blue +woolen shirt, pantaloons stuffed into boot-tops, whiskered half down to +the waist, and the universal navy revolver slung to my belt. But I +secured a more Christian costume and discarded the revolver. + +I had never had occasion to kill anybody, nor ever felt a desire to do +so, but had worn the thing in deference to popular sentiment, and in +order that I might not, by its absence, be offensively conspicuous, and a +subject of remark. But the other editors, and all the printers, carried +revolvers. I asked the chief editor and proprietor (Mr. Goodman, I will +call him, since it describes him as well as any name could do) for some +instructions with regard to my duties, and he told me to go all over town +and ask all sorts of people all sorts of questions, make notes of the +information gained, and write them out for publication. And he added: + +"Never say 'We learn' so-and-so, or 'It is reported,' or 'It is rumored,' +or 'We understand' so-and-so, but go to headquarters and get the absolute +facts, and then speak out and say 'It is so-and-so.' Otherwise, people +will not put confidence in your news. Unassailable certainly is the +thing that gives a newspaper the firmest and most valuable reputation." + +It was the whole thing in a nut-shell; and to this day when I find a +reporter commencing his article with "We understand," I gather a +suspicion that he has not taken as much pains to inform himself as he +ought to have done. I moralize well, but I did not always practise well +when I was a city editor; I let fancy get the upper hand of fact too +often when there was a dearth of news. I can never forget my first day's +experience as a reporter. I wandered about town questioning everybody, +boring everybody, and finding out that nobody knew anything. At the end +of five hours my notebook was still barren. I spoke to Mr. Goodman. He +said: + +"Dan used to make a good thing out of the hay wagons in a dry time when +there were no fires or inquests. Are there no hay wagons in from the +Truckee? If there are, you might speak of the renewed activity and all +that sort of thing, in the hay business, you know. + +"It isn't sensational or exciting, but it fills up and looks business +like." + +I canvassed the city again and found one wretched old hay truck dragging +in from the country. But I made affluent use of it. I multiplied it by +sixteen, brought it into town from sixteen different directions, made +sixteen separate items out of it, and got up such another sweat about hay +as Virginia City had never seen in the world before. + +This was encouraging. Two nonpareil columns had to be filled, and I was +getting along. Presently, when things began to look dismal again, a +desperado killed a man in a saloon and joy returned once more. I never +was so glad over any mere trifle before in my life. I said to the +murderer: + +"Sir, you are a stranger to me, but you have done me a kindness this day +which I can never forget. If whole years of gratitude can be to you any +slight compensation, they shall be yours. I was in trouble and you have +relieved me nobly and at a time when all seemed dark and drear. Count me +your friend from this time forth, for I am not a man to forget a favor." + +If I did not really say that to him I at least felt a sort of itching +desire to do it. I wrote up the murder with a hungry attention to +details, and when it was finished experienced but one regret--namely, +that they had not hanged my benefactor on the spot, so that I could work +him up too. + +Next I discovered some emigrant wagons going into camp on the plaza and +found that they had lately come through the hostile Indian country and +had fared rather roughly. I made the best of the item that the +circumstances permitted, and felt that if I were not confined within +rigid limits by the presence of the reporters of the other papers I could +add particulars that would make the article much more interesting. +However, I found one wagon that was going on to California, and made some +judicious inquiries of the proprietor. When I learned, through his short +and surly answers to my cross-questioning, that he was certainly going on +and would not be in the city next day to make trouble, I got ahead of the +other papers, for I took down his list of names and added his party to +the killed and wounded. Having more scope here, I put this wagon through +an Indian fight that to this day has no parallel in history. + +My two columns were filled. When I read them over in the morning I felt +that I had found my legitimate occupation at last. I reasoned within +myself that news, and stirring news, too, was what a paper needed, and I +felt that I was peculiarly endowed with the ability to furnish it. +Mr. Goodman said that I was as good a reporter as Dan. I desired no +higher commendation. With encouragement like that, I felt that I could +take my pen and murder all the immigrants on the plains if need be and +the interests of the paper demanded it. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +However, as I grew better acquainted with the business and learned the +run of the sources of information I ceased to require the aid of fancy to +any large extent, and became able to fill my columns without diverging +noticeably from the domain of fact. + +I struck up friendships with the reporters of the other journals, and we +swapped "regulars" with each other and thus economized work. "Regulars" +are permanent sources of news, like courts, bullion returns, "clean-ups" +at the quartz mills, and inquests. Inasmuch as everybody went armed, we +had an inquest about every day, and so this department was naturally set +down among the "regulars." We had lively papers in those days. My great +competitor among the reporters was Boggs of the Union. He was an +excellent reporter. Once in three or four months he would get a little +intoxicated, but as a general thing he was a wary and cautious drinker +although always ready to tamper a little with the enemy. He had the +advantage of me in one thing; he could get the monthly public school +report and I could not, because the principal hated the Enterprise. +One snowy night when the report was due, I started out sadly wondering +how I was going to get it. Presently, a few steps up the almost deserted +street I stumbled on Boggs and asked him where he was going. + +"After the school report." + +"I'll go along with you." + +"No, sir. I'll excuse you." + +"Just as you say." + +A saloon-keeper's boy passed by with a steaming pitcher of hot punch, and +Boggs snuffed the fragrance gratefully. He gazed fondly after the boy +and saw him start up the Enterprise stairs. I said: + +"I wish you could help me get that school business, but since you can't, +I must run up to the Union office and see if I can get them to let me +have a proof of it after they have set it up, though I don't begin to +suppose they will. Good night." + +"Hold on a minute. I don't mind getting the report and sitting around +with the boys a little, while you copy it, if you're willing to drop down +to the principal's with me." + +"Now you talk like a rational being. Come along." + +We plowed a couple of blocks through the snow, got the report and +returned to our office. It was a short document and soon copied. +Meantime Boggs helped himself to the punch. I gave the manuscript back +to him and we started out to get an inquest, for we heard pistol shots +near by. We got the particulars with little loss of time, for it was +only an inferior sort of bar-room murder, and of little interest to the +public, and then we separated. Away at three o'clock in the morning, +when we had gone to press and were having a relaxing concert as usual +--for some of the printers were good singers and others good performers on +the guitar and on that atrocity the accordion--the proprietor of the +Union strode in and desired to know if anybody had heard anything of +Boggs or the school report. We stated the case, and all turned out to +help hunt for the delinquent. We found him standing on a table in a +saloon, with an old tin lantern in one hand and the school report in the +other, haranguing a gang of intoxicated Cornish miners on the iniquity of +squandering the public moneys on education "when hundreds and hundreds of +honest hard-working men are literally starving for whiskey." [Riotous +applause.] He had been assisting in a regal spree with those parties for +hours. We dragged him away and put him to bed. + +Of course there was no school report in the Union, and Boggs held me +accountable, though I was innocent of any intention or desire to compass +its absence from that paper and was as sorry as any one that the +misfortune had occurred. + +But we were perfectly friendly. The day that the school report was next +due, the proprietor of the "Genessee" mine furnished us a buggy and asked +us to go down and write something about the property--a very common +request and one always gladly acceded to when people furnished buggies, +for we were as fond of pleasure excursions as other people. In due time +we arrived at the "mine"--nothing but a hole in the ground ninety feet +deep, and no way of getting down into it but by holding on to a rope and +being lowered with a windlass. The workmen had just gone off somewhere +to dinner. I was not strong enough to lower Boggs's bulk; so I took an +unlighted candle in my teeth, made a loop for my foot in the end of the +rope, implored Boggs not to go to sleep or let the windlass get the start +of him, and then swung out over the shaft. I reached the bottom muddy +and bruised about the elbows, but safe. I lit the candle, made an +examination of the rock, selected some specimens and shouted to Boggs to +hoist away. No answer. Presently a head appeared in the circle of +daylight away aloft, and a voice came down: + +"Are you all set?" + +"All set--hoist away." + +"Are you comfortable?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Could you wait a little?" + +"Oh certainly--no particular hurry." + +"Well--good by." + +"Why? Where are you going?" + +"After the school report!" + +And he did. I staid down there an hour, and surprised the workmen when +they hauled up and found a man on the rope instead of a bucket of rock. +I walked home, too--five miles--up hill. We had no school report next +morning; but the Union had. + +Six months after my entry into journalism the grand "flush times" of +Silverland began, and they continued with unabated splendor for three +years. All difficulty about filling up the "local department" ceased, +and the only trouble now was how to make the lengthened columns hold the +world of incidents and happenings that came to our literary net every +day. Virginia had grown to be the "livest" town, for its age and +population, that America had ever produced. The sidewalks swarmed with +people--to such an extent, indeed, that it was generally no easy matter +to stem the human tide. The streets themselves were just as crowded with +quartz wagons, freight teams and other vehicles. The procession was +endless. So great was the pack, that buggies frequently had to wait half +an hour for an opportunity to cross the principal street. Joy sat on +every countenance, and there was a glad, almost fierce, intensity in +every eye, that told of the money-getting schemes that were seething in +every brain and the high hope that held sway in every heart. Money was +as plenty as dust; every individual considered himself wealthy, and a +melancholy countenance was nowhere to be seen. There were military +companies, fire companies, brass bands, banks, hotels, theatres, +"hurdy-gurdy houses," wide-open gambling palaces, political pow-wows, +civic processions, street fights, murders, inquests, riots, a whiskey +mill every fifteen steps, a Board of Aldermen, a Mayor, a City Surveyor, +a City Engineer, a Chief of the Fire Department, with First, Second and +Third Assistants, a Chief of Police, City Marshal and a large police +force, two Boards of Mining Brokers, a dozen breweries and half a dozen +jails and station-houses in full operation, and some talk of building a +church. The "flush times" were in magnificent flower! Large fire-proof +brick buildings were going up in the principal streets, and the wooden +suburbs were spreading out in all directions. Town lots soared up to +prices that were amazing. + +The great "Comstock lode" stretched its opulent length straight through +the town from north to south, and every mine on it was in diligent +process of development. One of these mines alone employed six hundred +and seventy-five men, and in the matter of elections the adage was, "as +the 'Gould and Curry' goes, so goes the city." Laboring men's wages were +four and six dollars a day, and they worked in three "shifts" or gangs, +and the blasting and picking and shoveling went on without ceasing, night +and day. + +The "city" of Virginia roosted royally midway up the steep side of Mount +Davidson, seven thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea, and +in the clear Nevada atmosphere was visible from a distance of fifty +miles! It claimed a population of fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand, +and all day long half of this little army swarmed the streets like bees +and the other half swarmed among the drifts and tunnels of the +"Comstock," hundreds of feet down in the earth directly under those same +streets. Often we felt our chairs jar, and heard the faint boom of a +blast down in the bowels of the earth under the office. + +The mountain side was so steep that the entire town had a slant to it +like a roof. Each street was a terrace, and from each to the next street +below the descent was forty or fifty feet. The fronts of the houses were +level with the street they faced, but their rear first floors were +propped on lofty stilts; a man could stand at a rear first floor window +of a C street house and look down the chimneys of the row of houses below +him facing D street. It was a laborious climb, in that thin atmosphere, +to ascend from D to A street, and you were panting and out of breath when +you got there; but you could turn around and go down again like a house +a-fire--so to speak. The atmosphere was so rarified, on account of the +great altitude, that one's blood lay near the surface always, and the +scratch of a pin was a disaster worth worrying about, for the chances +were that a grievous erysipelas would ensue. But to offset this, the +thin atmosphere seemed to carry healing to gunshot wounds, and therefore, +to simply shoot your adversary through both lungs was a thing not likely +to afford you any permanent satisfaction, for he would be nearly certain +to be around looking for you within the month, and not with an opera +glass, either. + +From Virginia's airy situation one could look over a vast, far-reaching +panorama of mountain ranges and deserts; and whether the day was bright +or overcast, whether the sun was rising or setting, or flaming in the +zenith, or whether night and the moon held sway, the spectacle was always +impressive and beautiful. Over your head Mount Davidson lifted its gray +dome, and before and below you a rugged canyon clove the battlemented +hills, making a sombre gateway through which a soft-tinted desert was +glimpsed, with the silver thread of a river winding through it, bordered +with trees which many miles of distance diminished to a delicate fringe; +and still further away the snowy mountains rose up and stretched their +long barrier to the filmy horizon--far enough beyond a lake that burned +in the desert like a fallen sun, though that, itself, lay fifty miles +removed. Look from your window where you would, there was fascination in +the picture. At rare intervals--but very rare--there were clouds in our +skies, and then the setting sun would gild and flush and glorify this +mighty expanse of scenery with a bewildering pomp of color that held the +eye like a spell and moved the spirit like music. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +My salary was increased to forty dollars a week. But I seldom drew it. +I had plenty of other resources, and what were two broad twenty-dollar +gold pieces to a man who had his pockets full of such and a cumbersome +abundance of bright half dollars besides? [Paper money has never come +into use on the Pacific coast.] Reporting was lucrative, and every man +in the town was lavish with his money and his "feet." The city and all +the great mountain side were riddled with mining shafts. There were more +mines than miners. True, not ten of these mines were yielding rock worth +hauling to a mill, but everybody said, "Wait till the shaft gets down +where the ledge comes in solid, and then you will see!" So nobody was +discouraged. These were nearly all "wild cat" mines, and wholly +worthless, but nobody believed it then. The "Ophir," the "Gould & +Curry," the "Mexican," and other great mines on the Comstock lead in +Virginia and Gold Hill were turning out huge piles of rich rock every +day, and every man believed that his little wild cat claim was as good as +any on the "main lead" and would infallibly be worth a thousand dollars a +foot when he "got down where it came in solid." Poor fellow, he was +blessedly blind to the fact that he never would see that day. So the +thousand wild cat shafts burrowed deeper and deeper into the earth day by +day, and all men were beside themselves with hope and happiness. How +they labored, prophesied, exulted! Surely nothing like it was ever seen +before since the world began. Every one of these wild cat mines--not +mines, but holes in the ground over imaginary mines--was incorporated and +had handsomely engraved "stock" and the stock was salable, too. It was +bought and sold with a feverish avidity in the boards every day. You +could go up on the mountain side, scratch around and find a ledge (there +was no lack of them), put up a "notice" with a grandiloquent name in it, +start a shaft, get your stock printed, and with nothing whatever to prove +that your mine was worth a straw, you could put your stock on the market +and sell out for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. To make money, +and make it fast, was as easy as it was to eat your dinner. + +Every man owned "feet" in fifty different wild cat mines and considered +his fortune made. Think of a city with not one solitary poor man in it! +One would suppose that when month after month went by and still not a +wild cat mine (by wild cat I mean, in general terms, any claim not +located on the mother vein, i.e., the "Comstock") yielded a ton of rock +worth crushing, the people would begin to wonder if they were not putting +too much faith in their prospective riches; but there was not a thought +of such a thing. They burrowed away, bought and sold, and were happy. + +New claims were taken up daily, and it was the friendly custom to run +straight to the newspaper offices, give the reporter forty or fifty +"feet," and get them to go and examine the mine and publish a notice of +it. They did not care a fig what you said about the property so you said +something. Consequently we generally said a word or two to the effect +that the "indications" were good, or that the ledge was "six feet wide," +or that the rock "resembled the Comstock" (and so it did--but as a +general thing the resemblance was not startling enough to knock you +down). If the rock was moderately promising, we followed the custom of +the country, used strong adjectives and frothed at the mouth as if a very +marvel in silver discoveries had transpired. If the mine was a +"developed" one, and had no pay ore to show (and of course it hadn't), we +praised the tunnel; said it was one of the most infatuating tunnels in +the land; driveled and driveled about the tunnel till we ran entirely out +of ecstasies--but never said a word about the rock. We would squander +half a column of adulation on a shaft, or a new wire rope, or a dressed +pine windlass, or a fascinating force pump, and close with a burst of +admiration of the "gentlemanly and efficient Superintendent" of the mine +--but never utter a whisper about the rock. And those people were always +pleased, always satisfied. Occasionally we patched up and varnished our +reputation for discrimination and stern, undeviating accuracy, by giving +some old abandoned claim a blast that ought to have made its dry bones +rattle--and then somebody would seize it and sell it on the fleeting +notoriety thus conferred upon it. + +There was nothing in the shape of a mining claim that was not salable. +We received presents of "feet" every day. If we needed a hundred dollars +or so, we sold some; if not, we hoarded it away, satisfied that it would +ultimately be worth a thousand dollars a foot. I had a trunk about half +full of "stock." When a claim made a stir in the market and went up to a +high figure, I searched through my pile to see if I had any of its stock +--and generally found it. + +The prices rose and fell constantly; but still a fall disturbed us +little, because a thousand dollars a foot was our figure, and so we were +content to let it fluctuate as much as it pleased till it reached it. +My pile of stock was not all given to me by people who wished their +claims "noticed." At least half of it was given me by persons who had no +thought of such a thing, and looked for nothing more than a simple verbal +"thank you;" and you were not even obliged by law to furnish that. +If you are coming up the street with a couple of baskets of apples in +your hands, and you meet a friend, you naturally invite him to take a +few. That describes the condition of things in Virginia in the "flush +times." Every man had his pockets full of stock, and it was the actual +custom of the country to part with small quantities of it to friends +without the asking. + +Very often it was a good idea to close the transaction instantly, when a +man offered a stock present to a friend, for the offer was only good and +binding at that moment, and if the price went to a high figure shortly +afterward the procrastination was a thing to be regretted. Mr. Stewart +(Senator, now, from Nevada) one day told me he would give me twenty feet +of "Justis" stock if I would walk over to his office. It was worth five +or ten dollars a foot. I asked him to make the offer good for next day, +as I was just going to dinner. He said he would not be in town; so I +risked it and took my dinner instead of the stock. Within the week the +price went up to seventy dollars and afterward to a hundred and fifty, +but nothing could make that man yield. I suppose he sold that stock of +mine and placed the guilty proceeds in his own pocket. [My revenge will +be found in the accompanying portrait.] I met three friends one +afternoon, who said they had been buying "Overman" stock at auction at +eight dollars a foot. One said if I would come up to his office he would +give me fifteen feet; another said he would add fifteen; the third said +he would do the same. But I was going after an inquest and could not +stop. A few weeks afterward they sold all their "Overman" at six hundred +dollars a foot and generously came around to tell me about it--and also +to urge me to accept of the next forty-five feet of it that people tried +to force on me. + +These are actual facts, and I could make the list a long one and still +confine myself strictly to the truth. Many a time friends gave us as +much as twenty-five feet of stock that was selling at twenty-five dollars +a foot, and they thought no more of it than they would of offering a +guest a cigar. These were "flush times" indeed! I thought they were +going to last always, but somehow I never was much of a prophet. + +To show what a wild spirit possessed the mining brain of the community, +I will remark that "claims" were actually "located" in excavations for +cellars, where the pick had exposed what seemed to be quartz veins--and +not cellars in the suburbs, either, but in the very heart of the city; +and forthwith stock would be issued and thrown on the market. It was +small matter who the cellar belonged to--the "ledge" belonged to the +finder, and unless the United States government interfered (inasmuch as +the government holds the primary right to mines of the noble metals in +Nevada--or at least did then), it was considered to be his privilege to +work it. Imagine a stranger staking out a mining claim among the costly +shrubbery in your front yard and calmly proceeding to lay waste the +ground with pick and shovel and blasting powder! It has been often done +in California. In the middle of one of the principal business streets of +Virginia, a man "located" a mining claim and began a shaft on it. He +gave me a hundred feet of the stock and I sold it for a fine suit of +clothes because I was afraid somebody would fall down the shaft and sue +for damages. I owned in another claim that was located in the middle of +another street; and to show how absurd people can be, that "East India" +stock (as it was called) sold briskly although there was an ancient +tunnel running directly under the claim and any man could go into it and +see that it did not cut a quartz ledge or anything that remotely +resembled one. + +One plan of acquiring sudden wealth was to "salt" a wild cat claim and +sell out while the excitement was up. The process was simple. + +The schemer located a worthless ledge, sunk a shaft on it, bought a wagon +load of rich "Comstock" ore, dumped a portion of it into the shaft and +piled the rest by its side, above ground. Then he showed the property to +a simpleton and sold it to him at a high figure. Of course the wagon +load of rich ore was all that the victim ever got out of his purchase. +A most remarkable case of "salting" was that of the "North Ophir." +It was claimed that this vein was a "remote extension" of the original +"Ophir," a valuable mine on the "Comstock." For a few days everybody was +talking about the rich developments in the North Ophir. It was said that +it yielded perfectly pure silver in small, solid lumps. I went to the +place with the owners, and found a shaft six or eight feet deep, in the +bottom of which was a badly shattered vein of dull, yellowish, +unpromising rock. One would as soon expect to find silver in a +grindstone. We got out a pan of the rubbish and washed it in a puddle, +and sure enough, among the sediment we found half a dozen black, +bullet-looking pellets of unimpeachable "native" silver. Nobody had ever +heard of such a thing before; science could not account for such a queer +novelty. The stock rose to sixty-five dollars a foot, and at this figure +the world-renowned tragedian, McKean Buchanan, bought a commanding +interest and prepared to quit the stage once more--he was always doing +that. And then it transpired that the mine had been "salted"--and not in +any hackneyed way, either, but in a singularly bold, barefaced and +peculiarly original and outrageous fashion. On one of the lumps of +"native" silver was discovered the minted legend, "TED STATES OF," and +then it was plainly apparent that the mine had been "salted" with melted +half-dollars! The lumps thus obtained had been blackened till they +resembled native silver, and were then mixed with the shattered rock in +the bottom of the shaft. It is literally true. Of course the price of +the stock at once fell to nothing, and the tragedian was ruined. But for +this calamity we might have lost McKean Buchanan from the stage. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +The "flush times" held bravely on. Something over two years before, Mr. +Goodman and another journeyman printer, had borrowed forty dollars and +set out from San Francisco to try their fortunes in the new city of +Virginia. They found the Territorial Enterprise, a poverty-stricken +weekly journal, gasping for breath and likely to die. They bought it, +type, fixtures, good-will and all, for a thousand dollars, on long time. +The editorial sanctum, news-room, press-room, publication office, +bed-chamber, parlor, and kitchen were all compressed into one apartment +and it was a small one, too. The editors and printers slept on the +floor, a Chinaman did their cooking, and the "imposing-stone" was the +general dinner table. But now things were changed. The paper was a +great daily, printed by steam; there were five editors and twenty-three +compositors; the subscription price was sixteen dollars a year; the +advertising rates were exorbitant, and the columns crowded. The paper +was clearing from six to ten thousand dollars a month, and the +"Enterprise Building" was finished and ready for occupation--a stately +fireproof brick. Every day from five all the way up to eleven columns +of "live" advertisements were left out or crowded into spasmodic and +irregular "supplements." + +The "Gould & Curry" company were erecting a monster hundred-stamp mill at +a cost that ultimately fell little short of a million dollars. Gould & +Curry stock paid heavy dividends--a rare thing, and an experience +confined to the dozen or fifteen claims located on the "main lead," the +"Comstock." The Superintendent of the Gould & Curry lived, rent free, in +a fine house built and furnished by the company. He drove a fine pair of +horses which were a present from the company, and his salary was twelve +thousand dollars a year. The superintendent of another of the great +mines traveled in grand state, had a salary of twenty-eight thousand +dollars a year, and in a law suit in after days claimed that he was to +have had one per cent. on the gross yield of the bullion likewise. + +Money was wonderfully plenty. The trouble was, not how to get it,--but +how to spend it, how to lavish it, get rid of it, squander it. And so it +was a happy thing that just at this juncture the news came over the wires +that a great United States Sanitary Commission had been formed and money +was wanted for the relief of the wounded sailors and soldiers of the +Union languishing in the Eastern hospitals. Right on the heels of it +came word that San Francisco had responded superbly before the telegram +was half a day old. Virginia rose as one man! A Sanitary Committee was +hurriedly organized, and its chairman mounted a vacant cart in C street +and tried to make the clamorous multitude understand that the rest of the +committee were flying hither and thither and working with all their might +and main, and that if the town would only wait an hour, an office would +be ready, books opened, and the Commission prepared to receive +contributions. His voice was drowned and his information lost in a +ceaseless roar of cheers, and demands that the money be received now +--they swore they would not wait. The chairman pleaded and argued, but, +deaf to all entreaty, men plowed their way through the throng and rained +checks of gold coin into the cart and skurried away for more. Hands +clutching money, were thrust aloft out of the jam by men who hoped this +eloquent appeal would cleave a road their strugglings could not open. +The very Chinamen and Indians caught the excitement and dashed their half +dollars into the cart without knowing or caring what it was all about. +Women plunged into the crowd, trimly attired, fought their way to the +cart with their coin, and emerged again, by and by, with their apparel in +a state of hopeless dilapidation. It was the wildest mob Virginia had +ever seen and the most determined and ungovernable; and when at last it +abated its fury and dispersed, it had not a penny in its pocket. + +To use its own phraseology, it came there "flush" and went away "busted." + +After that, the Commission got itself into systematic working order, and +for weeks the contributions flowed into its treasury in a generous +stream. Individuals and all sorts of organizations levied upon +themselves a regular weekly tax for the sanitary fund, graduated +according to their means, and there was not another grand universal +outburst till the famous "Sanitary Flour Sack" came our way. Its history +is peculiar and interesting. A former schoolmate of mine, by the name of +Reuel Gridley, was living at the little city of Austin, in the Reese +river country, at this time, and was the Democratic candidate for mayor. +He and the Republican candidate made an agreement that the defeated man +should be publicly presented with a fifty-pound sack of flour by the +successful one, and should carry it home on his shoulder. Gridley was +defeated. The new mayor gave him the sack of flour, and he shouldered it +and carried it a mile or two, from Lower Austin to his home in Upper +Austin, attended by a band of music and the whole population. Arrived +there, he said he did not need the flour, and asked what the people +thought he had better do with it. A voice said: + +"Sell it to the highest bidder, for the benefit of the Sanitary fund." + +The suggestion was greeted with a round of applause, and Gridley mounted +a dry-goods box and assumed the role of auctioneer. The bids went higher +and higher, as the sympathies of the pioneers awoke and expanded, till at +last the sack was knocked down to a mill man at two hundred and fifty +dollars, and his check taken. He was asked where he would have the flour +delivered, and he said: + +"Nowhere--sell it again." + +Now the cheers went up royally, and the multitude were fairly in the +spirit of the thing. So Gridley stood there and shouted and perspired +till the sun went down; and when the crowd dispersed he had sold the sack +to three hundred different people, and had taken in eight thousand +dollars in gold. And still the flour sack was in his possession. + +The news came to Virginia, and a telegram went back: + +"Fetch along your flour sack!" + +Thirty-six hours afterward Gridley arrived, and an afternoon mass meeting +was held in the Opera House, and the auction began. But the sack had +come sooner than it was expected; the people were not thoroughly aroused, +and the sale dragged. At nightfall only five thousand dollars had been +secured, and there was a crestfallen feeling in the community. However, +there was no disposition to let the matter rest here and acknowledge +vanquishment at the hands of the village of Austin. Till late in the +night the principal citizens were at work arranging the morrow's +campaign, and when they went to bed they had no fears for the result. +At eleven the next morning a procession of open carriages, attended by +clamorous bands of music and adorned with a moving display of flags, +filed along C street and was soon in danger of blockade by a huzzaing +multitude of citizens. In the first carriage sat Gridley, with the flour +sack in prominent view, the latter splendid with bright paint and gilt +lettering; also in the same carriage sat the mayor and the recorder. +The other carriages contained the Common Council, the editors and +reporters, and other people of imposing consequence. The crowd pressed +to the corner of C and Taylor streets, expecting the sale to begin there, +but they were disappointed, and also unspeakably surprised; for the +cavalcade moved on as if Virginia had ceased to be of importance, and +took its way over the "divide," toward the small town of Gold Hill. +Telegrams had gone ahead to Gold Hill, Silver City and Dayton, and those +communities were at fever heat and rife for the conflict. It was a very +hot day, and wonderfully dusty. At the end of a short half hour we +descended into Gold Hill with drums beating and colors flying, and +enveloped in imposing clouds of dust. The whole population--men, women +and children, Chinamen and Indians, were massed in the main street, all +the flags in town were at the mast head, and the blare of the bands was +drowned in cheers. Gridley stood up and asked who would make the first +bid for the National Sanitary Flour Sack. Gen. W. said: + +"The Yellow Jacket silver mining company offers a thousand dollars, +coin!" + +A tempest of applause followed. A telegram carried the news to Virginia, +and fifteen minutes afterward that city's population was massed in the +streets devouring the tidings--for it was part of the programme that the +bulletin boards should do a good work that day. Every few minutes a new +dispatch was bulletined from Gold Hill, and still the excitement grew. +Telegrams began to return to us from Virginia beseeching Gridley to bring +back the flour sack; but such was not the plan of the campaign. At the +end of an hour Gold Hill's small population had paid a figure for the +flour sack that awoke all the enthusiasm of Virginia when the grand total +was displayed upon the bulletin boards. Then the Gridley cavalcade moved +on, a giant refreshed with new lager beer and plenty of it--for the +people brought it to the carriages without waiting to measure it--and +within three hours more the expedition had carried Silver City and Dayton +by storm and was on its way back covered with glory. Every move had been +telegraphed and bulletined, and as the procession entered Virginia and +filed down C street at half past eight in the evening the town was abroad +in the thoroughfares, torches were glaring, flags flying, bands playing, +cheer on cheer cleaving the air, and the city ready to surrender at +discretion. The auction began, every bid was greeted with bursts of +applause, and at the end of two hours and a half a population of fifteen +thousand souls had paid in coin for a fifty-pound sack of flour a sum +equal to forty thousand dollars in greenbacks! It was at a rate in the +neighborhood of three dollars for each man, woman and child of the +population. The grand total would have been twice as large, but the +streets were very narrow, and hundreds who wanted to bid could not get +within a block of the stand, and could not make themselves heard. These +grew tired of waiting and many of them went home long before the auction +was over. This was the greatest day Virginia ever saw, perhaps. + +Gridley sold the sack in Carson city and several California towns; also +in San Francisco. Then he took it east and sold it in one or two +Atlantic cities, I think. I am not sure of that, but I know that he +finally carried it to St. Louis, where a monster Sanitary Fair was being +held, and after selling it there for a large sum and helping on the +enthusiasm by displaying the portly silver bricks which Nevada's donation +had produced, he had the flour baked up into small cakes and retailed +them at high prices. + +It was estimated that when the flour sack's mission was ended it had been +sold for a grand total of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in +greenbacks! This is probably the only instance on record where common +family flour brought three thousand dollars a pound in the public market. + +It is due to Mr. Gridley's memory to mention that the expenses of his +sanitary flour sack expedition of fifteen thousand miles, going and +returning, were paid in large part if not entirely, out of his own +pocket. The time he gave to it was not less than three months. +Mr. Gridley was a soldier in the Mexican war and a pioneer Californian. +He died at Stockton, California, in December, 1870, greatly regretted. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +There were nabobs in those days--in the "flush times," I mean. Every +rich strike in the mines created one or two. I call to mind several of +these. They were careless, easy-going fellows, as a general thing, and +the community at large was as much benefited by their riches as they were +themselves--possibly more, in some cases. + +Two cousins, teamsters, did some hauling for a man and had to take a +small segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu of $300 cash. They +gave an outsider a third to open the mine, and they went on teaming. But +not long. Ten months afterward the mine was out of debt and paying each +owner $8,000 to $10,000 a month--say $100,000 a year. + +One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of wore $6,000 worth +of diamonds in his bosom, and swore he was unhappy because he could not +spend his money as fast as he made it. + +Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that often reached $16,000 a +month; and he used to love to tell how he had worked in the very mine +that yielded it, for five dollars a day, when he first came to the +country. + +The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another of these pets of +fortune--lifted from actual poverty to affluence almost in a single +night--who was able to offer $100,000 for a position of high official +distinction, shortly afterward, and did offer it--but failed to get it, +his politics not being as sound as his bank account. + +Then there was John Smith. He was a good, honest, kind-hearted soul, +born and reared in the lower ranks of life, and miraculously ignorant. +He drove a team, and owned a small ranch--a ranch that paid him a +comfortable living, for although it yielded but little hay, what little +it did yield was worth from $250 to $300 in gold per ton in the market. +Presently Smith traded a few acres of the ranch for a small undeveloped +silver mine in Gold Hill. He opened the mine and built a little +unpretending ten-stamp mill. Eighteen months afterward he retired from +the hay business, for his mining income had reached a most comfortable +figure. Some people said it was $30,000 a month, and others said it was +$60,000. Smith was very rich at any rate. + +And then he went to Europe and traveled. And when he came back he was +never tired of telling about the fine hogs he had seen in England, and +the gorgeous sheep he had seen in Spain, and the fine cattle he had +noticed in the vicinity of Rome. He was full of wonders of the old +world, and advised everybody to travel. He said a man never imagined +what surprising things there were in the world till he had traveled. + +One day, on board ship, the passengers made up a pool of $500, which was +to be the property of the man who should come nearest to guessing the run +of the vessel for the next twenty-four hours. Next day, toward noon, the +figures were all in the purser's hands in sealed envelopes. Smith was +serene and happy, for he had been bribing the engineer. But another +party won the prize! Smith said: + +"Here, that won't do! He guessed two miles wider of the mark than I did." + +The purser said, "Mr. Smith, you missed it further than any man on board. +We traveled two hundred and eight miles yesterday." + +"Well, sir," said Smith, "that's just where I've got you, for I guessed +two hundred and nine. If you'll look at my figgers again you'll find a 2 +and two 0's, which stands for 200, don't it?--and after 'em you'll find a +9 (2009), which stands for two hundred and nine. I reckon I'll take that +money, if you please." + +The Gould & Curry claim comprised twelve hundred feet, and it all +belonged originally to the two men whose names it bears. Mr. Curry owned +two thirds of it--and he said that he sold it out for twenty-five hundred +dollars in cash, and an old plug horse that ate up his market value in +hay and barley in seventeen days by the watch. And he said that Gould +sold out for a pair of second-hand government blankets and a bottle of +whisky that killed nine men in three hours, and that an unoffending +stranger that smelt the cork was disabled for life. Four years afterward +the mine thus disposed of was worth in the San Francisco market seven +millions six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin. + +In the early days a poverty-stricken Mexican who lived in a canyon +directly back of Virginia City, had a stream of water as large as a man's +wrist trickling from the hill-side on his premises. The Ophir Company +segregated a hundred feet of their mine and traded it to him for the +stream of water. The hundred feet proved to be the richest part of the +entire mine; four years after the swap, its market value (including its +mill) was $1,500,000. + +An individual who owned twenty feet in the Ophir mine before its great +riches were revealed to men, traded it for a horse, and a very sorry +looking brute he was, too. A year or so afterward, when Ophir stock went +up to $3,000 a foot, this man, who had not a cent, used to say he was the +most startling example of magnificence and misery the world had ever +seen--because he was able to ride a sixty-thousand-dollar horse--yet +could not scrape up cash enough to buy a saddle, and was obliged to +borrow one or ride bareback. He said if fortune were to give him another +sixty-thousand-dollar horse it would ruin him. + +A youth of nineteen, who was a telegraph operator in Virginia on a salary +of a hundred dollars a month, and who, when he could not make out German +names in the list of San Francisco steamer arrivals, used to ingeniously +select and supply substitutes for them out of an old Berlin city +directory, made himself rich by watching the mining telegrams that passed +through his hands and buying and selling stocks accordingly, through a +friend in San Francisco. Once when a private dispatch was sent from +Virginia announcing a rich strike in a prominent mine and advising that +the matter be kept secret till a large amount of the stock could be +secured, he bought forty "feet" of the stock at twenty dollars a foot, +and afterward sold half of it at eight hundred dollars a foot and the +rest at double that figure. Within three months he was worth $150,000, +and had resigned his telegraphic position. + +Another telegraph operator who had been discharged by the company for +divulging the secrets of the office, agreed with a moneyed man in San +Francisco to furnish him the result of a great Virginia mining lawsuit +within an hour after its private reception by the parties to it in San +Francisco. For this he was to have a large percentage of the profits on +purchases and sales made on it by his fellow-conspirator. So he went, +disguised as a teamster, to a little wayside telegraph office in the +mountains, got acquainted with the operator, and sat in the office day +after day, smoking his pipe, complaining that his team was fagged out and +unable to travel--and meantime listening to the dispatches as they passed +clicking through the machine from Virginia. Finally the private dispatch +announcing the result of the lawsuit sped over the wires, and as soon as +he heard it he telegraphed his friend in San Francisco: + +"Am tired waiting. Shall sell the team and go home." + +It was the signal agreed upon. The word "waiting" left out, would have +signified that the suit had gone the other way. + +The mock teamster's friend picked up a deal of the mining stock, at low +figures, before the news became public, and a fortune was the result. + +For a long time after one of the great Virginia mines had been +incorporated, about fifty feet of the original location were still in the +hands of a man who had never signed the incorporation papers. The stock +became very valuable, and every effort was made to find this man, but he +had disappeared. Once it was heard that he was in New York, and one or +two speculators went east but failed to find him. Once the news came +that he was in the Bermudas, and straightway a speculator or two hurried +east and sailed for Bermuda--but he was not there. Finally he was heard +of in Mexico, and a friend of his, a bar-keeper on a salary, scraped +together a little money and sought him out, bought his "feet" for a +hundred dollars, returned and sold the property for $75,000. + +But why go on? The traditions of Silverland are filled with instances +like these, and I would never get through enumerating them were I to +attempt do it. I only desired to give, the reader an idea of a +peculiarity of the "flush times" which I could not present so strikingly +in any other way, and which some mention of was necessary to a realizing +comprehension of the time and the country. + +I was personally acquainted with the majority of the nabobs I have +referred to, and so, for old acquaintance sake, I have shifted their +occupations and experiences around in such a way as to keep the Pacific +public from recognizing these once notorious men. No longer notorious, +for the majority of them have drifted back into poverty and obscurity +again. + +In Nevada there used to be current the story of an adventure of two of +her nabobs, which may or may not have occurred. I give it for what it is +worth: + +Col. Jim had seen somewhat of the world, and knew more or less of its +ways; but Col. Jack was from the back settlements of the States, had led +a life of arduous toil, and had never seen a city. These two, blessed +with sudden wealth, projected a visit to New York,--Col. Jack to see the +sights, and Col. Jim to guard his unsophistication from misfortune. They +reached San Francisco in the night, and sailed in the morning. Arrived +in New York, Col. Jack said: + +"I've heard tell of carriages all my life, and now I mean to have a ride +in one; I don't care what it costs. Come along." + +They stepped out on the sidewalk, and Col. Jim called a stylish barouche. +But Col. Jack said: + +"No, sir! None of your cheap-John turn-outs for me. I'm here to have a +good time, and money ain't any object. I mean to have the nobbiest rig +that's going. Now here comes the very trick. Stop that yaller one with +the pictures on it--don't you fret--I'll stand all the expenses myself." + +So Col. Jim stopped an empty omnibus, and they got in. Said Col. Jack: + +"Ain't it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not! Cushions, and windows, and +pictures, till you can't rest. What would the boys say if they could see +us cutting a swell like this in New York? By George, I wish they could +see us." + +Then he put his head out of the window, and shouted to the driver: + +"Say, Johnny, this suits me!--suits yours truly, you bet, you! I want +this shebang all day. I'm on it, old man! Let 'em out! Make 'em go! +We'll make it all right with you, sonny!" + +The driver passed his hand through the strap-hole, and tapped for his +fare--it was before the gongs came into common use. Col. Jack took the +hand, and shook it cordially. He said: + +"You twig me, old pard! All right between gents. Smell of that, and see +how you like it!" + +And he put a twenty-dollar gold piece in the driver's hand. After a +moment the driver said he could not make change. + +"Bother the change! Ride it out. Put it in your pocket." + +Then to Col. Jim, with a sounding slap on his thigh: + +"Ain't it style, though? Hanged if I don't hire this thing every day for +a week." + +The omnibus stopped, and a young lady got in. Col. Jack stared a moment, +then nudged Col. Jim with his elbow: + +"Don't say a word," he whispered. "Let her ride, if she wants to. +Gracious, there's room enough." + +The young lady got out her porte-monnaie, and handed her fare to Col. +Jack. + +"What's this for?" said he. + +"Give it to the driver, please." + +"Take back your money, madam. We can't allow it. You're welcome to ride +here as long as you please, but this shebang's chartered, and we can't +let you pay a cent." + +The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old lady with a basket +climbed in, and proffered her fare. + +"Excuse me," said Col. Jack. "You're perfectly welcome here, madam, but +we can't allow you to pay. Set right down there, mum, and don't you be +the least uneasy. Make yourself just as free as if you was in your own +turn-out." + +Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat women, and a couple of +children, entered. + +"Come right along, friends," said Col. Jack; "don't mind us. This is a +free blow-out." Then he whispered to Col. Jim, + +"New York ain't no sociable place, I don't reckon--it ain't no name for +it!" + +He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver, and made everybody +cordially welcome. The situation dawned on the people, and they pocketed +their money, and delivered themselves up to covert enjoyment of the +episode. Half a dozen more passengers entered. + +"Oh, there's plenty of room," said Col. Jack. "Walk right in, and make +yourselves at home. A blow-out ain't worth anything as a blow-out, +unless a body has company." Then in a whisper to Col. Jim: "But ain't +these New Yorkers friendly? And ain't they cool about it, too? Icebergs +ain't anywhere. I reckon they'd tackle a hearse, if it was going their +way." + +More passengers got in; more yet, and still more. Both seats were +filled, and a file of men were standing up, holding on to the cleats +overhead. Parties with baskets and bundles were climbing up on the roof. +Half-suppressed laughter rippled up from all sides. + +"Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don't bang anything +that ever I saw, I'm an Injun!" whispered Col. Jack. + +A Chinaman crowded his way in. + +"I weaken!" said Col. Jack. "Hold on, driver! Keep your seats, ladies, +and gents. Just make yourselves free--everything's paid for. Driver, +rustle these folks around as long as they're a mind to go--friends of +ours, you know. Take them everywheres--and if you want more money, come +to the St. Nicholas, and we'll make it all right. Pleasant journey to +you, ladies and gents--go it just as long as you please--it shan't cost +you a cent!" + +The two comrades got out, and Col. Jack said: + +"Jimmy, it's the sociablest place I ever saw. The Chinaman waltzed in as +comfortable as anybody. If we'd staid awhile, I reckon we'd had some +niggers. B' George, we'll have to barricade our doors to-night, or some +of these ducks will be trying to sleep with us." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must observe the +style of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with most +ceremony. I cannot say which class we buried with most eclat in our +"flush times," the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished +rough--possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of society +honored their illustrious dead about equally; and hence, no doubt the +philosopher I have quoted from would have needed to see two +representative funerals in Virginia before forming his estimate of the +people. + +There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was a +representative citizen. He had "killed his man"--not in his own quarrel, +it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. +He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing +helpmeet whom he could have discarded without the formality of a divorce. +He had held a high position in the fire department and been a very +Warwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation throughout +the town, but especially in the vast bottom-stratum of society. + +On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of a +wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body, +cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken his +neck--and after due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with +intelligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of death "by +the visitation of God." What could the world do without juries? + +Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles in +town were hired, all the saloons put in mourning, all the municipal and +fire-company flags hung at half-mast, and all the firemen ordered to +muster in uniform and bring their machines duly draped in black. Now +--let us remark in parenthesis--as all the peoples of the earth had +representative adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had +brought the slang of his nation or his locality with him, the combination +made the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely varied and +copious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps, except in +the mines of California in the "early days." Slang was the language of +Nevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be understood. +Such phrases as "You bet!" "Oh, no, I reckon not!" "No Irish need +apply," and a hundred others, became so common as to fall from the lips +of a speaker unconsciously--and very often when they did not touch the +subject under discussion and consequently failed to mean anything. + +After Buck Fanshaw's inquest, a meeting of the short-haired brotherhood +was held, for nothing can be done on the Pacific coast without a public +meeting and an expression of sentiment. Regretful resolutions were +passed and various committees appointed; among others, a committee of one +was deputed to call on the minister, a fragile, gentle, spiritual new +fledgling from an Eastern theological seminary, and as yet unacquainted +with the ways of the mines. The committeeman, "Scotty" Briggs, made his +visit; and in after days it was worth something to hear the minister tell +about it. Scotty was a stalwart rough, whose customary suit, when on +weighty official business, like committee work, was a fire helmet, +flaming red flannel shirt, patent leather belt with spanner and revolver +attached, coat hung over arm, and pants stuffed into boot tops. +He formed something of a contrast to the pale theological student. It is +fair to say of Scotty, however, in passing, that he had a warm heart, and +a strong love for his friends, and never entered into a quarrel when he +could reasonably keep out of it. Indeed, it was commonly said that +whenever one of Scotty's fights was investigated, it always turned out +that it had originally been no affair of his, but that out of native +good-heartedness he had dropped in of his own accord to help the man who +was getting the worst of it. He and Buck Fanshaw were bosom friends, for +years, and had often taken adventurous "pot-luck" together. On one +occasion, they had thrown off their coats and taken the weaker side in a +fight among strangers, and after gaining a hard-earned victory, turned +and found that the men they were helping had deserted early, and not only +that, but had stolen their coats and made off with them! But to return +to Scotty's visit to the minister. He was on a sorrowful mission, now, +and his face was the picture of woe. Being admitted to the presence he +sat down before the clergyman, placed his fire-hat on an unfinished +manuscript sermon under the minister's nose, took from it a red silk +handkerchief, wiped his brow and heaved a sigh of dismal impressiveness, +explanatory of his business. + +He choked, and even shed tears; but with an effort he mastered his voice +and said in lugubrious tones: + +"Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door?" + +"Am I the--pardon me, I believe I do not understand?" + +With another sigh and a half-sob, Scotty rejoined: + +"Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought maybe you +would give us a lift, if we'd tackle you--that is, if I've got the rights +of it and you are the head clerk of the doxology-works next door." + +"I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next door." + +"The which?" + +"The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose sanctuary +adjoins these premises." + +Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then said: + +"You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't call that hand. Ante +and pass the buck." + +"How? I beg pardon. What did I understand you to say?" + +"Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. Or maybe we've both got the +bulge, somehow. You don't smoke me and I don't smoke you. You see, one +of the boys has passed in his checks and we want to give him a good +send-off, and so the thing I'm on now is to roust out somebody to jerk +a little chin-music for us and waltz him through handsome." + +"My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your observations +are wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot you simplify them in some way? +At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it +not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical statements +of fact unencumbered with obstructing accumulations of metaphor and +allegory?" + +Another pause, and more reflection. Then, said Scotty: + +"I'll have to pass, I judge." + +"How?" + +"You've raised me out, pard." + +"I still fail to catch your meaning." + +"Why, that last lead of yourn is too many for me--that's the idea. I +can't neither-trump nor follow suit." + +The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty leaned his head +on his hand and gave himself up to thought. + +Presently his face came up, sorrowful but confident. + +"I've got it now, so's you can savvy," he said. "What we want is a +gospel-sharp. See?" + +"A what?" + +"Gospel-sharp. Parson." + +"Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a clergyman--a parson." + +"Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle it like a man. Put it +there!"--extending a brawny paw, which closed over the minister's small +hand and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal sympathy and fervent +gratification. + +"Now we're all right, pard. Let's start fresh. Don't you mind my +snuffling a little--becuz we're in a power of trouble. You see, one of +the boys has gone up the flume--" + +"Gone where?" + +"Up the flume--throwed up the sponge, you understand." + +"Thrown up the sponge?" + +"Yes--kicked the bucket--" + +"Ah--has departed to that mysterious country from whose bourne no +traveler returns." + +"Return! I reckon not. Why pard, he's dead!" + +"Yes, I understand." + +"Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might be getting tangled some +more. Yes, you see he's dead again--" + +"Again? Why, has he ever been dead before?" + +"Dead before? No! Do you reckon a man has got as many lives as a cat? +But you bet you he's awful dead now, poor old boy, and I wish I'd never +seen this day. I don't want no better friend than Buck Fanshaw. +I knowed him by the back; and when I know a man and like him, I freeze to +him--you hear me. Take him all round, pard, there never was a bullier +man in the mines. No man ever knowed Buck Fanshaw to go back on a +friend. But it's all up, you know, it's all up. It ain't no use. +They've scooped him." + +"Scooped him?" + +"Yes--death has. Well, well, well, we've got to give him up. Yes +indeed. It's a kind of a hard world, after all, ain't it? But pard, he +was a rustler! You ought to seen him get started once. He was a bully +boy with a glass eye! Just spit in his face and give him room according +to his strength, and it was just beautiful to see him peel and go in. +He was the worst son of a thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was on +it! He was on it bigger than an Injun!" + +"On it? On what?" + +"On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. +He didn't give a continental for any body. Beg your pardon, friend, for +coming so near saying a cuss-word--but you see I'm on an awful strain, in +this palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so +mild. But we've got to give him up. There ain't any getting around +that, I don't reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him--" + +"Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the obsequies?" + +"Obs'quies is good. Yes. That's it--that's our little game. We are +going to get the thing up regardless, you know. He was always nifty +himself, and so you bet you his funeral ain't going to be no slouch +--solid silver door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and a +nigger on the box in a biled shirt and a plug hat--how's that for high? +And we'll take care of you, pard. We'll fix you all right. There'll be +a kerridge for you; and whatever you want, you just 'scape out and we'll +'tend to it. We've got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind, in +No. 1's house, and don't you be afraid. Just go in and toot your horn, +if you don't sell a clam. Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, +for anybody that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the whitest +men that was ever in the mines. You can't draw it too strong. He never +could stand it to see things going wrong. He's done more to make this +town quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I've seen him lick four +Greasers in eleven minutes, myself. If a thing wanted regulating, he +warn't a man to go browsing around after somebody to do it, but he would +prance in and regulate it himself. He warn't a Catholic. Scasely. He +was down on 'em. His word was, 'No Irish need apply!' But it didn't +make no difference about that when it came down to what a man's rights +was--and so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic bone-yard and started +in to stake out town-lots in it he went for 'em! And he cleaned 'em, +too! I was there, pard, and I seen it myself." + +"That was very well indeed--at least the impulse was--whether the act was +strictly defensible or not. Had deceased any religious convictions? +That is to say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge allegiance +to a higher power?" + +More reflection. + +"I reckon you've stumped me again, pard. Could you say it over once +more, and say it slow?" + +"Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he ever been +connected with any organization sequestered from secular concerns and +devoted to self-sacrifice in the interests of morality?" + +"All down but nine--set 'em up on the other alley, pard." + +"What did I understand you to say?" + +"Why, you're most too many for me, you know. When you get in with your +left I hunt grass every time. Every time you draw, you fill; but I don't +seem to have any luck. Lets have a new deal." + +"How? Begin again?" + +"That's it." + +"Very well. Was he a good man, and--" + +"There--I see that; don't put up another chip till I look at my hand. +A good man, says you? Pard, it ain't no name for it. He was the best +man that ever--pard, you would have doted on that man. He could lam any +galoot of his inches in America. It was him that put down the riot last +election before it got a start; and everybody said he was the only man +that could have done it. He waltzed in with a spanner in one hand and a +trumpet in the other, and sent fourteen men home on a shutter in less +than three minutes. He had that riot all broke up and prevented nice +before anybody ever got a chance to strike a blow. He was always for +peace, and he would have peace--he could not stand disturbances. Pard, +he was a great loss to this town. It would please the boys if you could +chip in something like that and do him justice. Here once when the Micks +got to throwing stones through the Methodis' Sunday school windows, Buck +Fanshaw, all of his own notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple of +six-shooters and mounted guard over the Sunday school. Says he, 'No +Irish need apply!' And they didn't. He was the bulliest man in the +mountains, pard! He could run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and hold +more tangle-foot whisky without spilling it than any man in seventeen +counties. Put that in, pard--it'll please the boys more than anything +you could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his mother." + +"Never shook his mother?" + +"That's it--any of the boys will tell you so." + +"Well, but why should he shake her?" + +"That's what I say--but some people does." + +"Not people of any repute?" + +"Well, some that averages pretty so-so." + +"In my opinion the man that would offer personal violence to his own +mother, ought to--" + +"Cheese it, pard; you've banked your ball clean outside the string. +What I was a drivin' at, was, that he never throwed off on his mother +--don't you see? No indeedy. He give her a house to live in, and town +lots, and plenty of money; and he looked after her and took care of her +all the time; and when she was down with the small-pox I'm d---d if he +didn't set up nights and nuss her himself! Beg your pardon for saying +it, but it hopped out too quick for yours truly. + +"You've treated me like a gentleman, pard, and I ain't the man to hurt +your feelings intentional. I think you're white. I think you're a +square man, pard. I like you, and I'll lick any man that don't. I'll +lick him till he can't tell himself from a last year's corpse! Put it +there!" [Another fraternal hand-shake--and exit.] + +The obsequies were all that "the boys" could desire. Such a marvel of +funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the +dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flags +drooping at half mast, the long, plodding procession of uniformed secret +societies, military battalions and fire companies, draped engines, +carriages of officials, and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted +multitudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs and windows; and for +years afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display in +Virginia was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw's funeral. + +Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a prominent place +at the funeral, and when the sermon was finished and the last sentence of +the prayer for the dead man's soul ascended, he responded, in a low +voice, but with feelings: + +"AMEN. No Irish need apply." + +As the bulk of the response was without apparent relevancy, it was +probably nothing more than a humble tribute to the memory of the friend +that was gone; for, as Scotty had once said, it was "his word." + +Scotty Briggs, in after days, achieved the distinction of becoming the +only convert to religion that was ever gathered from the Virginia roughs; +and it transpired that the man who had it in him to espouse the quarrel +of the weak out of inborn nobility of spirit was no mean timber whereof +to construct a Christian. The making him one did not warp his generosity +or diminish his courage; on the contrary it gave intelligent direction to +the one and a broader field to the other. + +If his Sunday-school class progressed faster than the other classes, was +it matter for wonder? I think not. He talked to his pioneer small-fry +in a language they understood! It was my large privilege, a month before +he died, to hear him tell the beautiful story of Joseph and his brethren +to his class "without looking at the book." I leave it to the reader to +fancy what it was like, as it fell, riddled with slang, from the lips of +that grave, earnest teacher, and was listened to by his little learners +with a consuming interest that showed that they were as unconscious as he +was that any violence was being done to the sacred proprieties! + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +The first twenty-six graves in the Virginia cemetery were occupied by +murdered men. So everybody said, so everybody believed, and so they will +always say and believe. The reason why there was so much slaughtering +done, was, that in a new mining district the rough element predominates, +and a person is not respected until he has "killed his man." That was +the very expression used. + +If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if he was capable, +honest, industrious, but--had he killed his man? If he had not, he +gravitated to his natural and proper position, that of a man of small +consequence; if he had, the cordiality of his reception was graduated +according to the number of his dead. It was tedious work struggling up +to a position of influence with bloodless hands; but when a man came with +the blood of half a dozen men on his soul, his worth was recognized at +once and his acquaintance sought. + +In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, the chief +desperado, the chief gambler, and the saloon keeper, occupied the same +level in society, and it was the highest. The cheapest and easiest way +to become an influential man and be looked up to by the community at +large, was to stand behind a bar, wear a cluster-diamond pin, and sell +whisky. I am not sure but that the saloon-keeper held a shade higher +rank than any other member of society. His opinion had weight. It was +his privilege to say how the elections should go. No great movement +could succeed without the countenance and direction of the +saloon-keepers. It was a high favor when the chief saloon-keeper +consented to serve in the legislature or the board of aldermen. + +Youthful ambition hardly aspired so much to the honors of the law, or the +army and navy as to the dignity of proprietorship in a saloon. + +To be a saloon-keeper and kill a man was to be illustrious. Hence the +reader will not be surprised to learn that more than one man was killed +in Nevada under hardly the pretext of provocation, so impatient was the +slayer to achieve reputation and throw off the galling sense of being +held in indifferent repute by his associates. I knew two youths who +tried to "kill their men" for no other reason--and got killed themselves +for their pains. "There goes the man that killed Bill Adams" was higher +praise and a sweeter sound in the ears of this sort of people than any +other speech that admiring lips could utter. + +The men who murdered Virginia's original twenty-six cemetery-occupants +were never punished. Why? Because Alfred the Great, when he invented +trial by jury and knew that he had admirably framed it to secure justice +in his age of the world, was not aware that in the nineteenth century the +condition of things would be so entirely changed that unless he rose from +the grave and altered the jury plan to meet the emergency, it would prove +the most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating justice that human +wisdom could contrive. For how could he imagine that we simpletons would +go on using his jury plan after circumstances had stripped it of its +usefulness, any more than he could imagine that we would go on using his +candle-clock after we had invented chronometers? In his day news could +not travel fast, and hence he could easily find a jury of honest, +intelligent men who had not heard of the case they were called to try +--but in our day of telegraphs and newspapers his plan compels us to swear +in juries composed of fools and rascals, because the system rigidly +excludes honest men and men of brains. + +I remember one of those sorrowful farces, in Virginia, which we call a +jury trial. A noted desperado killed Mr. B., a good citizen, in the most +wanton and cold-blooded way. Of course the papers were full of it, and +all men capable of reading, read about it. And of course all men not +deaf and dumb and idiotic, talked about it. A jury-list was made out, +and Mr. B. L., a prominent banker and a valued citizen, was questioned +precisely as he would have been questioned in any court in America: + +"Have you heard of this homicide?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you held conversations upon the subject?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you formed or expressed opinions about it?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you read the newspaper accounts of it?" + +"Yes." + +"We do not want you." + +A minister, intelligent, esteemed, and greatly respected; a merchant of +high character and known probity; a mining superintendent of intelligence +and unblemished reputation; a quartz mill owner of excellent standing, +were all questioned in the same way, and all set aside. Each said the +public talk and the newspaper reports had not so biased his mind but that +sworn testimony would overthrow his previously formed opinions and enable +him to render a verdict without prejudice and in accordance with the +facts. But of course such men could not be trusted with the case. +Ignoramuses alone could mete out unsullied justice. + +When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of twelve men +was impaneled--a jury who swore they had neither heard, read, talked +about nor expressed an opinion concerning a murder which the very cattle +in the corrals, the Indians in the sage-brush and the stones in the +streets were cognizant of! It was a jury composed of two desperadoes, +two low beer-house politicians, three bar-keepers, two ranchmen who could +not read, and three dull, stupid, human donkeys! It actually came out +afterward, that one of these latter thought that incest and arson were +the same thing. + +The verdict rendered by this jury was, Not Guilty. What else could one +expect? + +The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and a premium +upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is a shame that we must +continue to use a worthless system because it was good a thousand years +ago. In this age, when a gentleman of high social standing, intelligence +and probity, swears that testimony given under solemn oath will outweigh, +with him, street talk and newspaper reports based upon mere hearsay, he +is worth a hundred jurymen who will swear to their own ignorance and +stupidity, and justice would be far safer in his hands than in theirs. +Why could not the jury law be so altered as to give men of brains and +honesty and equal chance with fools and miscreants? Is it right to show +the present favoritism to one class of men and inflict a disability on +another, in a land whose boast is that all its citizens are free and +equal? I am a candidate for the legislature. I desire to tamper with +the jury law. I wish to so alter it as to put a premium on intelligence +and character, and close the jury box against idiots, blacklegs, and +people who do not read newspapers. But no doubt I shall be defeated +--every effort I make to save the country "misses fire." + +My idea, when I began this chapter, was to say something about +desperadoism in the "flush times" of Nevada. To attempt a portrayal of +that era and that land, and leave out the blood and carnage, would be +like portraying Mormondom and leaving out polygamy. The desperado +stalked the streets with a swagger graded according to the number of his +homicides, and a nod of recognition from him was sufficient to make a +humble admirer happy for the rest of the day. The deference that was +paid to a desperado of wide reputation, and who "kept his private +graveyard," as the phrase went, was marked, and cheerfully accorded. +When he moved along the sidewalk in his excessively long-tailed +frock-coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hat +tipped over left eye, the small-fry roughs made room for his majesty; +when he entered the restaurant, the waiters deserted bankers and +merchants to overwhelm him with obsequious service; when he shouldered +his way to a bar, the shouldered parties wheeled indignantly, recognized +him, and --apologized. + +They got a look in return that froze their marrow, and by that time a +curled and breast-pinned bar keeper was beaming over the counter, proud +of the established acquaintanceship that permitted such a familiar form +of speech as: + +"How're ye, Billy, old fel? Glad to see you. What'll you take--the old +thing?" + +The "old thing" meant his customary drink, of course. + +The best known names in the Territory of Nevada were those belonging to +these long-tailed heroes of the revolver. Orators, Governors, +capitalists and leaders of the legislature enjoyed a degree of fame, but +it seemed local and meagre when contrasted with the fame of such men as +Sam Brown, Jack Williams, Billy Mulligan, Farmer Pease, Sugarfoot Mike, +Pock Marked Jake, El Dorado Johnny, Jack McNabb, Joe McGee, Jack Harris, +Six-fingered Pete, etc., etc. There was a long list of them. They were +brave, reckless men, and traveled with their lives in their hands. To +give them their due, they did their killing principally among themselves, +and seldom molested peaceable citizens, for they considered it small +credit to add to their trophies so cheap a bauble as the death of a man +who was "not on the shoot," as they phrased it. They killed each other +on slight provocation, and hoped and expected to be killed themselves +--for they held it almost shame to die otherwise than "with their boots +on," as they expressed it. + +I remember an instance of a desperado's contempt for such small game as a +private citizen's life. I was taking a late supper in a restaurant one +night, with two reporters and a little printer named--Brown, for +instance--any name will do. Presently a stranger with a long-tailed coat +on came in, and not noticing Brown's hat, which was lying in a chair, sat +down on it. Little Brown sprang up and became abusive in a moment. The +stranger smiled, smoothed out the hat, and offered it to Brown with +profuse apologies couched in caustic sarcasm, and begged Brown not to +destroy him. Brown threw off his coat and challenged the man to fight +--abused him, threatened him, impeached his courage, and urged and even +implored him to fight; and in the meantime the smiling stranger placed +himself under our protection in mock distress. But presently he assumed +a serious tone, and said: + +"Very well, gentlemen, if we must fight, we must, I suppose. But don't +rush into danger and then say I gave you no warning. I am more than a +match for all of you when I get started. I will give you proofs, and +then if my friend here still insists, I will try to accommodate him." + +The table we were sitting at was about five feet long, and unusually +cumbersome and heavy. He asked us to put our hands on the dishes and +hold them in their places a moment--one of them was a large oval dish +with a portly roast on it. Then he sat down, tilted up one end of the +table, set two of the legs on his knees, took the end of the table +between his teeth, took his hands away, and pulled down with his teeth +till the table came up to a level position, dishes and all! He said he +could lift a keg of nails with his teeth. He picked up a common glass +tumbler and bit a semi-circle out of it. Then he opened his bosom and +showed us a net-work of knife and bullet scars; showed us more on his +arms and face, and said he believed he had bullets enough in his body to +make a pig of lead. He was armed to the teeth. He closed with the +remark that he was Mr. ---- of Cariboo--a celebrated name whereat we shook +in our shoes. I would publish the name, but for the suspicion that he +might come and carve me. He finally inquired if Brown still thirsted for +blood. Brown turned the thing over in his mind a moment, and then--asked +him to supper. + +With the permission of the reader, I will group together, in the next +chapter, some samples of life in our small mountain village in the old +days of desperadoism. I was there at the time. The reader will observe +peculiarities in our official society; and he will observe also, an +instance of how, in new countries, murders breed murders. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +An extract or two from the newspapers of the day will furnish a +photograph that can need no embellishment: + + FATAL SHOOTING AFFRAY.--An affray occurred, last evening, in a + billiard saloon on C street, between Deputy Marshal Jack Williams + and Wm. Brown, which resulted in the immediate death of the latter. + There had been some difficulty between the parties for several + months. + + An inquest was immediately held, and the following testimony + adduced: + + Officer GEO. BIRDSALL, sworn, says:--I was told Wm. Brown was drunk + and was looking for Jack Williams; so soon as I heard that I started + for the parties to prevent a collision; went into the billiard + saloon; saw Billy Brown running around, saying if anybody had + anything against him to show cause; he was talking in a boisterous + manner, and officer Perry took him to the other end of the room to + talk to him; Brown came back to me; remarked to me that he thought + he was as good as anybody, and knew how to take care of himself; he + passed by me and went to the bar; don't know whether he drank or + not; Williams was at the end of the billiard-table, next to the + stairway; Brown, after going to the bar, came back and said he was + as good as any man in the world; he had then walked out to the end + of the first billiard-table from the bar; I moved closer to them, + supposing there would be a fight; as Brown drew his pistol I caught + hold of it; he had fired one shot at Williams; don't know the effect + of it; caught hold of him with one hand, and took hold of the pistol + and turned it up; think he fired once after I caught hold of the + pistol; I wrenched the pistol from him; walked to the end of the + billiard-table and told a party that I had Brown's pistol, and to + stop shooting; I think four shots were fired in all; after walking + out, Mr. Foster remarked that Brown was shot dead. + +Oh, there was no excitement about it--he merely "remarked" the small +circumstance! + +Four months later the following item appeared in the same paper (the +Enterprise). In this item the name of one of the city officers above +referred to (Deputy Marshal Jack Williams) occurs again: + + ROBBERY AND DESPERATE AFFRAY.--On Tuesday night, a German named + Charles Hurtzal, engineer in a mill at Silver City, came to this + place, and visited the hurdy-gurdy house on B street. The music, + dancing and Teutonic maidens awakened memories of Faderland until + our German friend was carried away with rapture. He evidently had + money, and was spending if freely. Late in the evening Jack + Williams and Andy Blessington invited him down stairs to take a cup + of coffee. Williams proposed a game of cards and went up stairs to + procure a deck, but not finding any returned. On the stairway he + met the German, and drawing his pistol knocked him down and rifled + his pockets of some seventy dollars. Hurtzal dared give no alarm, + as he was told, with a pistol at his head, if he made any noise or + exposed them, they would blow his brains out. So effectually was he + frightened that he made no complaint, until his friends forced him. + Yesterday a warrant was issued, but the culprits had disappeared. + +This efficient city officer, Jack Williams, had the common reputation of +being a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. It was said that he had +several times drawn his revolver and levied money contributions on +citizens at dead of night in the public streets of Virginia. + +Five months after the above item appeared, Williams was assassinated +while sitting at a card table one night; a gun was thrust through the +crack of the door and Williams dropped from his chair riddled with balls. +It was said, at the time, that Williams had been for some time aware that +a party of his own sort (desperadoes) had sworn away his life; and it was +generally believed among the people that Williams's friends and enemies +would make the assassination memorable--and useful, too--by a wholesale +destruction of each other. + +It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull during the next +twenty-four hours, for within that time a woman was killed by a pistol +shot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and a man named Reeder was +also disposed of permanently. Some matters in the Enterprise account of +the killing of Reeder are worth nothing--especially the accommodating +complaisance of a Virginia justice of the peace. The italics in the +following narrative are mine: + + MORE CUTTING AND SHOOTING.--The devil seems to have again broken + loose in our town. Pistols and guns explode and knives gleam in our + streets as in early times. When there has been a long season of + quiet, people are slow to wet their hands in blood; but once blood + is spilled, cutting and shooting come easy. Night before last Jack + Williams was assassinated, and yesterday forenoon we had more bloody + work, growing out of the killing of Williams, and on the same street + in which he met his death. It appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of + Williams, and George Gumbert were talking, at the meat market of the + latter, about the killing of Williams the previous night, when + Reeder said it was a most cowardly act to shoot a man in such a way, + giving him "no show." Gumbert said that Williams had "as good a + show as he gave Billy Brown," meaning the man killed by Williams + last March. Reeder said it was a d---d lie, that Williams had no + show at all. At this, Gumbert drew a knife and stabbed Reeder, + cutting him in two places in the back. One stroke of the knife cut + into the sleeve of Reeder's coat and passed downward in a slanting + direction through his clothing, and entered his body at the small of + the back; another blow struck more squarely, and made a much more + dangerous wound. Gumbert gave himself up to the officers of + justice, and was shortly after discharged by Justice Atwill, on his + own recognizance, to appear for trial at six o'clock in the evening. + In the meantime Reeder had been taken into the office of Dr. Owens, + where his wounds were properly dressed. One of his wounds was + considered quite dangerous, and it was thought by many that it would + prove fatal. But being considerably under the influence of liquor, + Reeder did not feel his wounds as he otherwise would, and he got up + and went into the street. He went to the meat market and renewed + his quarrel with Gumbert, threatening his life. Friends tried to + interfere to put a stop to the quarrel and get the parties away from + each other. In the Fashion Saloon Reeder made threats against the + life of Gumbert, saying he would kill him, and it is said that he + requested the officers not to arrest Gumbert, as he intended to kill + him. After these threats Gumbert went off and procured a + double-barreled shot gun, loaded with buck-shot or revolver balls, + and went after Reeder. Two or three persons were assisting him along + the street, trying to get him home, and had him just in front of the + store of Klopstock & Harris, when Gumbert came across toward him + from the opposite side of the street with his gun. He came up + within about ten or fifteen feet of Reeder, and called out to those + with him to "look out! get out of the way!" and they had only time + to heed the warning, when he fired. Reeder was at the time + attempting to screen himself behind a large cask, which stood + against the awning post of Klopstock & Harris's store, but some of + the balls took effect in the lower part of his breast, and he reeled + around forward and fell in front of the cask. Gumbert then raised + his gun and fired the second barrel, which missed Reeder and entered + the ground. At the time that this occurred, there were a great many + persons on the street in the vicinity, and a number of them called + out to Gumbert, when they saw him raise his gun, to "hold on," and + "don't shoot!" The cutting took place about ten o'clock and the + shooting about twelve. After the shooting the street was instantly + crowded with the inhabitants of that part of the town, some + appearing much excited and laughing--declaring that it looked like + the "good old times of '60." Marshal Perry and officer Birdsall + were near when the shooting occurred, and Gumbert was immediately + arrested and his gun taken from him, when he was marched off to + jail. Many persons who were attracted to the spot where this bloody + work had just taken place, looked bewildered and seemed to be asking + themselves what was to happen next, appearing in doubt as to whether + the killing mania had reached its climax, or whether we were to turn + in and have a grand killing spell, shooting whoever might have given + us offence. It was whispered around that it was not all over yet + --five or six more were to be killed before night. Reeder was taken + to the Virginia City Hotel, and doctors called in to examine his + wounds. They found that two or three balls had entered his right + side; one of them appeared to have passed through the substance of + the lungs, while another passed into the liver. Two balls were also + found to have struck one of his legs. As some of the balls struck + the cask, the wounds in Reeder's leg were probably from these, + glancing downwards, though they might have been caused by the second + shot fired. After being shot, Reeder said when he got on his feet + --smiling as he spoke--"It will take better shooting than that to + kill me." The doctors consider it almost impossible for him to + recover, but as he has an excellent constitution he may survive, + notwithstanding the number and dangerous character of the wounds he + has received. The town appears to be perfectly quiet at present, as + though the late stormy times had cleared our moral atmosphere; but + who can tell in what quarter clouds are lowering or plots ripening? + +Reeder--or at least what was left of him--survived his wounds two days! +Nothing was ever done with Gumbert. + +Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know what a +palladium is, having never seen a palladium, but it is a good thing no +doubt at any rate. Not less than a hundred men have been murdered in +Nevada--perhaps I would be within bounds if I said three hundred--and as +far as I can learn, only two persons have suffered the death penalty +there. However, four or five who had no money and no political influence +have been punished by imprisonment--one languished in prison as much as +eight months, I think. However, I do not desire to be extravagant--it +may have been less. + +However, one prophecy was verified, at any rate. It was asserted by the +desperadoes that one of their brethren (Joe McGee, a special policeman) +was known to be the conspirator chosen by lot to assassinate Williams; +and they also asserted that doom had been pronounced against McGee, and +that he would be assassinated in exactly the same manner that had been +adopted for the destruction of Williams--a prophecy which came true a +year later. After twelve months of distress (for McGee saw a fancied +assassin in every man that approached him), he made the last of many +efforts to get out of the country unwatched. He went to Carson and sat +down in a saloon to wait for the stage--it would leave at four in the +morning. But as the night waned and the crowd thinned, he grew uneasy, +and told the bar-keeper that assassins were on his track. The bar-keeper +told him to stay in the middle of the room, then, and not go near the +door, or the window by the stove. But a fatal fascination seduced him to +the neighborhood of the stove every now and then, and repeatedly the +bar-keeper brought him back to the middle of the room and warned him to +remain there. But he could not. At three in the morning he again +returned to the stove and sat down by a stranger. Before the bar-keeper +could get to him with another warning whisper, some one outside fired +through the window and riddled McGee's breast with slugs, killing him +almost instantly. By the same discharge the stranger at McGee's side +also received attentions which proved fatal in the course of two or three +days. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +These murder and jury statistics remind me of a certain very +extraordinary trial and execution of twenty years ago; it is a scrap of +history familiar to all old Californians, and worthy to be known by other +peoples of the earth that love simple, straightforward justice +unencumbered with nonsense. I would apologize for this digression but +for the fact that the information I am about to offer is apology enough +in itself. And since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is as well +to eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their growing irksome. + +Capt. Ned Blakely--that name will answer as well as any other fictitious +one (for he was still with the living at last accounts, and may not +desire to be famous)--sailed ships out of the harbor of San Francisco for +many years. He was a stalwart, warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who had +been a sailor nearly fifty years--a sailor from early boyhood. He was a +rough, honest creature, full of pluck, and just as full of hard-headed +simplicity, too. He hated trifling conventionalities--"business" was the +word, with him. He had all a sailor's vindictiveness against the quips +and quirks of the law, and steadfastly believed that the first and last +aim and object of the law and lawyers was to defeat justice. + +He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of a guano ship. He had a +fine crew, but his negro mate was his pet--on him he had for years +lavished his admiration and esteem. It was Capt. Ned's first voyage to +the Chinchas, but his fame had gone before him--the fame of being a man +who would fight at the dropping of a handkerchief, when imposed upon, and +would stand no nonsense. It was a fame well earned. Arrived in the +islands, he found that the staple of conversation was the exploits of one +Bill Noakes, a bully, the mate of a trading ship. This man had created a +small reign of terror there. At nine o'clock at night, Capt. Ned, all +alone, was pacing his deck in the starlight. A form ascended the side, +and approached him. Capt. Ned said: + +"Who goes there?" + +"I'm Bill Noakes, the best man in the islands." + +"What do you want aboard this ship?" + +"I've heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us is a better man than +'tother--I'll know which, before I go ashore." + +"You've come to the right shop--I'm your man. I'll learn you to come +aboard this ship without an invite." + +He seized Noakes, backed him against the mainmast, pounded his face to a +pulp, and then threw him overboard. + +Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next night, got the pulp +renewed, and went overboard head first, as before. + +He was satisfied. + +A week after this, while Noakes was carousing with a sailor crowd on +shore, at noonday, Capt. Ned's colored mate came along, and Noakes tried +to pick a quarrel with him. The negro evaded the trap, and tried to get +away. Noakes followed him up; the negro began to run; Noakes fired on +him with a revolver and killed him. Half a dozen sea-captains witnessed +the whole affair. Noakes retreated to the small after-cabin of his ship, +with two other bullies, and gave out that death would be the portion of +any man that intruded there. There was no attempt made to follow the +villains; there was no disposition to do it, and indeed very little +thought of such an enterprise. There were no courts and no officers; +there was no government; the islands belonged to Peru, and Peru was far +away; she had no official representative on the ground; and neither had +any other nation. + +However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head about such things. They +concerned him not. He was boiling with rage and furious for justice. +At nine o'clock at night he loaded a double-barreled gun with slugs, +fished out a pair of handcuffs, got a ship's lantern, summoned his +quartermaster, and went ashore. He said: + +"Do you see that ship there at the dock?" + +"Ay-ay, sir." + +"It's the Venus." + +"Ay-ay, sir." + +"You--you know me." + +"Ay-ay, sir." + +"Very well, then. Take the lantern. Carry it just under your chin. +I'll walk behind you and rest this gun-barrel on your shoulder, p'inting +forward--so. Keep your lantern well up so's I can see things ahead of +you good. I'm going to march in on Noakes--and take him--and jug the +other chaps. If you flinch--well, you know me." + +"Ay-ay, sir." + +In this order they filed aboard softly, arrived at Noakes's den, the +quartermaster pushed the door open, and the lantern revealed the three +desperadoes sitting on the floor. Capt. Ned said: + +"I'm Ned Blakely. I've got you under fire. Don't you move without +orders--any of you. You two kneel down in the corner; faces to the wall +--now. Bill Noakes, put these handcuffs on; now come up close. +Quartermaster, fasten 'em. All right. Don't stir, sir. Quartermaster, +put the key in the outside of the door. Now, men, I'm going to lock you +two in; and if you try to burst through this door--well, you've heard of +me. Bill Noakes, fall in ahead, and march. All set. Quartermaster, +lock the door." + +Noakes spent the night on board Blakely's ship, a prisoner under strict +guard. Early in the morning Capt. Ned called in all the sea-captains in +the harbor and invited them, with nautical ceremony, to be present on +board his ship at nine o'clock to witness the hanging of Noakes at the +yard-arm! + +"What! The man has not been tried." + +"Of course he hasn't. But didn't he kill the nigger?" + +"Certainly he did; but you are not thinking of hanging him without a +trial?" + +"Trial! What do I want to try him for, if he killed the nigger?" + +"Oh, Capt. Ned, this will never do. Think how it will sound." + +"Sound be hanged! Didn't he kill the nigger?" + +"Certainly, certainly, Capt. Ned,--nobody denies that,--but--" + +"Then I'm going to hang him, that's all. Everybody I've talked to talks +just the same way you do. Everybody says he killed the nigger, everybody +knows he killed the nigger, and yet every lubber of you wants him tried +for it. I don't understand such bloody foolishness as that. Tried! +Mind you, I don't object to trying him, if it's got to be done to give +satisfaction; and I'll be there, and chip in and help, too; but put it +off till afternoon--put it off till afternoon, for I'll have my hands +middling full till after the burying--" + +"Why, what do you mean? Are you going to hang him any how--and try him +afterward?" + +"Didn't I say I was going to hang him? I never saw such people as you. +What's the difference? You ask a favor, and then you ain't satisfied +when you get it. Before or after's all one--you know how the trial will +go. He killed the nigger. Say--I must be going. If your mate would +like to come to the hanging, fetch him along. I like him." + +There was a stir in the camp. The captains came in a body and pleaded +with Capt. Ned not to do this rash thing. They promised that they would +create a court composed of captains of the best character; they would +empanel a jury; they would conduct everything in a way becoming the +serious nature of the business in hand, and give the case an impartial +hearing and the accused a fair trial. And they said it would be murder, +and punishable by the American courts if he persisted and hung the +accused on his ship. They pleaded hard. Capt. Ned said: + +"Gentlemen, I'm not stubborn and I'm not unreasonable. I'm always +willing to do just as near right as I can. How long will it take?" + +"Probably only a little while." + +"And can I take him up the shore and hang him as soon as you are done?" + +"If he is proven guilty he shall be hanged without unnecessary delay." + +"If he's proven guilty. Great Neptune, ain't he guilty? This beats my +time. Why you all know he's guilty." + +But at last they satisfied him that they were projecting nothing +underhanded. Then he said: + +"Well, all right. You go on and try him and I'll go down and overhaul +his conscience and prepare him to go--like enough he needs it, and I +don't want to send him off without a show for hereafter." + +This was another obstacle. They finally convinced him that it was +necessary to have the accused in court. Then they said they would send a +guard to bring him. + +"No, sir, I prefer to fetch him myself--he don't get out of my hands. +Besides, I've got to go to the ship to get a rope, anyway." + +The court assembled with due ceremony, empaneled a jury, and presently +Capt. Ned entered, leading the prisoner with one hand and carrying a +Bible and a rope in the other. He seated himself by the side of his +captive and told the court to "up anchor and make sail." Then he turned +a searching eye on the jury, and detected Noakes's friends, the two +bullies. + +He strode over and said to them confidentially: + +"You're here to interfere, you see. Now you vote right, do you hear?--or +else there'll be a double-barreled inquest here when this trial's off, +and your remainders will go home in a couple of baskets." + +The caution was not without fruit. The jury was a unit--the verdict. +"Guilty." + +Capt. Ned sprung to his feet and said: + +"Come along--you're my meat now, my lad, anyway. Gentlemen you've done +yourselves proud. I invite you all to come and see that I do it all +straight. Follow me to the canyon, a mile above here." + +The court informed him that a sheriff had been appointed to do the +hanging, and-- + +Capt. Ned's patience was at an end. His wrath was boundless. The +subject of a sheriff was judiciously dropped. + +When the crowd arrived at the canyon, Capt. Ned climbed a tree and +arranged the halter, then came down and noosed his man. He opened his +Bible, and laid aside his hat. Selecting a chapter at random, he read it +through, in a deep bass voice and with sincere solemnity. Then he said: + +"Lad, you are about to go aloft and give an account of yourself; and the +lighter a man's manifest is, as far as sin's concerned, the better for +him. Make a clean breast, man, and carry a log with you that'll bear +inspection. You killed the nigger?" + +No reply. A long pause. + +The captain read another chapter, pausing, from time to time, to impress +the effect. Then he talked an earnest, persuasive sermon to him, and +ended by repeating the question: + +"Did you kill the nigger?" + +No reply--other than a malignant scowl. The captain now read the first +and second chapters of Genesis, with deep feeling--paused a moment, +closed the book reverently, and said with a perceptible savor of +satisfaction: + +"There. Four chapters. There's few that would have took the pains with +you that I have." + +Then he swung up the condemned, and made the rope fast; stood by and +timed him half an hour with his watch, and then delivered the body to the +court. A little after, as he stood contemplating the motionless figure, +a doubt came into his face; evidently he felt a twinge of conscience--a +misgiving--and he said with a sigh: + +"Well, p'raps I ought to burnt him, maybe. But I was trying to do for +the best." + +When the history of this affair reached California (it was in the "early +days") it made a deal of talk, but did not diminish the captain's +popularity in any degree. It increased it, indeed. California had a +population then that "inflicted" justice after a fashion that was +simplicity and primitiveness itself, and could therefore admire +appreciatively when the same fashion was followed elsewhere. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing It, Part 5. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 5. *** + +***** This file should be named 8586.txt or 8586.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/8/8586/ + +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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