Roughing It
247. A FAMILY LIKENESS
248. SIT DOWN To LISTEN
249. “MY BROTHER, WE TWINS”
250. EXTRAORDINARY CAPERS
251. A LOAD OF HAY
252. MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA
253. SANDWICH ISLAND GIRLS
254. ORIGINAL HAM SANDWICH
255. “I KISSED HIM FOR HIS MOTHER”
256. AN OUTSIDER
257. AN ENEMY’S PRAYER
258. VISITING THE MISSIONARIES
259. FULL CHURCH DRESS
260. PLAYING EMPIRE
261. ROYALTY AND ITS SATELLITES
262. A HIGH PRIVATE
263. A MODERN FUNERAL
264. FORMER FUNERAL ORGIES
265. A PASSENGER
266. MOONLIGHT ON THE WATER
267. GOING INTO THE MOUNTAINS
268. EVENING
289. THE DEMENTED
270. DISCUSSING TURNIPS
271. GREELEY’S LETTER
272. KEALAKEKUA BAY AND COOK’S MONUMENT
273. THE GHOSTLY BUILDERS
274. ON GUARD
275. BREAKING THE TABU
276. SURF BATHING
277. SURF BATHING A FAILURE
278. CITY OF REFUGE
279. THE QUEEN’S ROCK
280. TAIL-PIECE
281. THE PILLAR OF FIRE
282. THE CRATER
283. BROKE THROUGH
284. FIRE FOUNTAINS
285. LAVA STREAM
286. A TIDAL WAVE
287. TRIP ON THE MILKY WAY
288. A VIEW IN THE TAO VALLEY
289. MAGNIFICENT SPORT
290. ELEVEN MILES TO SEE
291. CHASED BY A STORM
292. LEAVING WORK
293. TAIL-PIECE
294. OUR AMUSEMENTS
295. SEVERE CASE OF STAGE FRIGHT
296. MY THREE PARQUETTE ALLIES
297. SAWYER IN THE CIRCLE
298. A PREDICAMENT
299. THE BEST OF THE JOKE
300. THE END
CHAPTER I.
My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an
office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and
dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting
Governor in the Governor’s absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars
a year and the title of “Mr. Secretary,” gave to the great position an
air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I
envied my brother. I coveted his distinction and his financial splendor,
but particularly and especially the long, strange journey he was going
to make, and the curious new world he was going to explore. He was going
to travel! I never had been away from home, and that word “travel” had a
seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of
miles away on the great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of
the Far West, and would see buffaloes and Indians, and prairie dogs, and
antelopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or
scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us all
about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines and the silver
mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and
pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and
silver on the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and
return home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco
and the ocean, and “the isthmus” as if it was nothing of any consequence
to have seen those marvels face to face.
020.jpg (69K)
What I suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And
so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of private
secretary under him, it appeared to me that the heavens and the earth
passed away, and the firmament was rolled together as a scroll! I had
nothing more to desire. My contentment was complete.
At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not much
packing up was necessary, because we were going in the overland stage
from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only allowed a
small quantity of baggage apiece. There was no Pacific railroad in those
fine times of ten or twelve years ago—not a single rail of it. I only
proposed to stay in Nevada three months—I had no thought of staying
longer than that. I meant to see all I could that was new and strange,
and then hurry home to business. I little thought that I would not see
the end of that three-month pleasure excursion for six or seven
uncommonly long years!
I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars, and in due
time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis wharf on board a
steamboat bound up the Missouri River.
021.jpg (82K)
We were six days going from St. Louis to “St. Jo.”—a trip that was so
dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left no more impression on
my memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that
many days. No record is left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a
confused jumble of savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked
over with one wheel or the other; and of reefs which we butted and
butted, and then retired from and climbed over in some softer place;
and of sand-bars which we roosted on occasionally, and rested, and then
got out our crutches and sparred over.
In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by land, for
she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and
clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The
captain said she was a “bully” boat, and all she wanted was more “shear”
and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the
deep sagacity not to say so.
CHaPTER II.
The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph
was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dollars
apiece for tickets per overland coach to Carson City, Nevada.
023a.jpg (31K)
The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty breakfast, and
hurried to the starting-place. Then an inconvenience presented itself
which we had not properly appreciated before, namely, that one cannot
make a heavy traveling trunk stand for twenty-five pounds of
baggage—because it weighs a good deal more. But that was all we could
take—twenty-five pounds each. So we had to snatch our trunks open, and
make a selection in a good deal of a hurry. We put our lawful
twenty-five pounds apiece all in one valise, and shipped the trunks
back to St. Louis again. It was a sad parting, for now we had no
swallow-tail coats and white kid gloves to wear at Pawnee receptions in
the Rocky Mountains, and no stove-pipe hats nor patent-leather boots,
nor anything else necessary to make life calm and peaceful. We were
reduced to a war-footing. Each of us put on a rough, heavy suit of
clothing, woolen army shirt and “stogy” boots included; and into the
valise we crowded a few white shirts, some under-clothing and such
things. My brother, the Secretary, took along about four pounds of
United States statutes and six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary; for we
did not know—poor innocents—that such things could be bought in San
Francisco on one day and received in Carson City the next. I was armed
to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter,
which carried a ball like a homoeopathic pill, and it took the whole
seven to make a dose for an adult. But I thought it was grand. It
appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It only had one fault—you
could not hit anything with it. One of our “conductors” practiced
awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and behaved
herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving about, and he
got to shooting at other things, she came to grief. The Secretary had a
small-sized Colt’s revolver strapped around him for protection against
the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it uncapped. Mr.
George Bemis was dismally formidable. George Bemis was our
fellow-traveler.
023b.jpg (11K)
We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original
“Allen” revolver, such as irreverent people called a “pepper-box.”
Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the
trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn
over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the
ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a
feat which was probably never done with an “Allen” in the world. But
George’s was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the
stage-drivers afterward said, “If she didn’t get what she went after,
she would fetch something else.” And so she did. She went after a deuce
of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about
thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the
owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy
it, anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon—the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six
barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all
the region round about, but behind it.
024.jpg (96K)
We took two or three blankets for protection against frosty weather in
the mountains. In the matter of luxuries we were modest—we took none
along but some pipes and five pounds of smoking tobacco. We had two
large canteens to carry water in, between stations on the Plains, and we
also took with us a little shot-bag of silver coin for daily expenses in
the way of breakfasts and dinners.
By eight o’clock everything was ready, and we were on the other side of
the river. We jumped into the stage, the driver cracked his whip, and we
bowled away and left “the States” behind us. It was a superb summer
morning, and all the landscape was brilliant with sunshine. There was a
freshness and breeziness, too, and an exhilarating sense of emancipation
from all sorts of cares and responsibilities, that almost made us feel
that the years we had spent in the close, hot city, toiling and slaving,
had been wasted and thrown away. We were spinning along through Kansas,
and in the course of an hour and a half we were fairly abroad on the
great Plains. Just here the land was rolling—a grand sweep of regular
elevations and depressions as far as the eye could reach—like the
stately heave and swell of the ocean’s bosom after a storm. And
everywhere were cornfields, accenting with squares of deeper green, this
limitless expanse of grassy land. But presently this sea upon dry ground
was to lose its “rolling” character and stretch away for seven hundred
miles as level as a floor!
Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage, of the most sumptuous
description—an imposing cradle on wheels. It was drawn by six handsome
horses, and by the side of the driver sat the “conductor,” the
legitimate captain of the craft; for it was his business to take charge
and care of the mails, baggage, express matter, and passengers. We three
were the only passengers, this trip. We sat on the back seat, inside.
About all the rest of the coach was full of mail bags—for we had three
days’ delayed mails with us. Almost touching our knees, a perpendicular
wall of mail matter rose up to the roof. There was a great pile of it
strapped on top of the stage, and both the fore and hind boots were
full. We had twenty-seven hundred pounds of it aboard, the driver
said—“a little for Brigham, and Carson, and ’Frisco, but the heft of it
for the Injuns, which is powerful troublesome ’thout they get plenty of
truck to read.”
026.jpg (65K)
But as he just then got up a fearful convulsion of his countenance which
was suggestive of a wink being swallowed by an earthquake, we guessed
that his remark was intended to be facetious, and to mean that we would
unload the most of our mail matter somewhere on the Plains and leave it
to the Indians, or whosoever wanted it.
025.jpg (32K)
We changed horses every ten miles, all day long, and fairly flew over
the hard, level road. We jumped out and stretched our legs every time
the coach stopped, and so the night found us still vivacious and
unfatigued.
After supper a woman got in, who lived about fifty miles further on, and
we three had to take turns at sitting outside with the driver and
conductor. Apparently she was not a talkative woman. She would sit there