My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada
Territory -- an office of such majesty that it con-
centrated 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 posi-
tion 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 buffa-
loes 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 conse-
quence to have seen those marvels face to face. What I
suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe.
And so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime posi-
tion of private secretary under him, it appeared to me that

     I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months -- I had no
thought of staying longer than that. I meant to see all I could
that was new and strange, and then hurry home to business. I
little thought that I would not see the end of that three-month
pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years!

     I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars,
and in due time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis
wharf on board a steamboat bound up the Missouri River.

     We were six days going from St. Louis to "St. Jo." -- a
trip that was so dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left
no more impression on my memory than if its duration had
been six minutes instead of that many days. No record is
left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a confused jumble
of savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked over
with one wheel or the other; and of reefs which we butted
and butted, and then retired from and climbed over in some
softer place; and of sand-bars which we roosted on occasion-
ally, 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.

     THE first thing we did on that glad evening that landed
us at St. Joseph was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay
a hundred and fifty dollars apiece for tickets per overland
coach to Carson City, Nevada.

     The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty break-
fast, 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 inno-
cents -- that such things could be bought in San Francisco on
one day and received in Carson City the next. I was armed

     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, toil-
ing 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 busi-
ness to take charge and
care of the mails, baggage,
express matter, and passen-
gers. 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

     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

     "The mosquitoes are pretty bad, about here, madam."

     "You bet!"

     "What did I understand you to say, madam?"

     "You BET!"

     Then she cheered up, and faced around and said:

     "Danged if I didn't begin to think you fellers was deef
and dumb. I did, b'gosh.
Here I've sot, and sot, and
sot, a-bust'n muskeeters and
wonderin' what was ailin'
ye. Fust I thot you was
deef and dumb, then I thot
you was sick or craxy, or
suthin', and then by and by
I begin to reckon you was
a passel of sickly fools that
couldn't think of nothing
to say. Wher'd ye come
from?"

     The Sphynx was a
Sphynx no more! The fountains of her great deep were
broken up and she rained the nine parts of speech forty days
and forty nights, metaphorically speaking, and buried us under

     How we suffered, suffered, suffered! She went on, hour
after hour, till I was sorry I ever opened the mosquito ques-
tion and gave her a start. She never did stop again until she
got to her journey's end toward daylight; and then she stirred
us up as she was leaving the stage (for we were nodding, by
that time), and said:

     "Now you git out at Cottonwood, you fellers, and lay over
a couple o' days, and I'll be along some time to-night, and if
I can do ye any good by edgin' in a word now and then, I'm
right thar. Folks 'll tell you 't I've always ben kind o' offish
and partic'lar for a gal that's raised in the woods, and I am,
with the rag-tag and bob-tail, and a gal has to be, if she wants
to be anything, but when people comes along which is my
equals, I reckon I'm a pretty sociable heifer after all."

     We resolved not to "lay by at Cottonwood."

     ABOUT an hour and a half before daylight we were bowl-
ing along smoothly over the road -- so smoothly that
our cradle only rocked in a gentle, lulling way, that was grad-
ually soothing us to sleep, and dulling our consciousness --
when something gave away under us! We were dimly aware
of it, but indifferent to it. The coach stopped. We heard
the driver and conductor talking together outside, and rum-
maging for a lantern, and swearing because they could not
find it -- but we had no interest in whatever had happened,
and it only added to our comfort to think of those people
out there at work in the murky night, and we snug in our
nest with the curtains drawn. But presently, by the sounds,
there seemed to be an examination going on, and then the
driver's voice said:

     "By George, the thoroughbrace is broke!"

     This startled me broad awake -- as un undefined sense of
calamity is always apt to do. I said to myself: "Now, a
thoroughbrace is probably part of a horse; and doubtless a
vital part, too, from the dismay in the driver's voice. Leg,
maybe -- and yet how could he break his leg waltzing along
such a road as this? No, it can't be his leg. That is impos-
sible, unless he was reaching for the driver. Now, what can
be the thoroughbrace of a horse, I wonder? Well, whatever
comes, I shall not air my ignorance in this crowd, anyway."

     Just then the conductor's face appeared at a lifted curtain,

     "Gents, you'll have to turn out a spell. Thoroughbrace is
broke."

     We climbed out into a chill drizzle, and felt ever so home-
less and dreary. When I found that the thing they called a
"thoroughbrace" was the massive combination of belts and
springs which the coach rocks itself in, I said to the driver:

     "I never saw a thoroughbrace used up like that, before,
that I can remember. How did it happen?"

     "Why, it happened by trying to make one coach carry
three days' mail -- that's how it happened," said he. "And
right here is the very direction which is wrote on all the
newspaper-bags which was to be put out for the Injuns for to
keep 'em quiet. It's most uncommon lucky, becuz it's so
nation dark I should 'a' gone by unbeknowns if that air
thoroughbrace hadn't broke."

     I knew that he was in labor with another of those winks
of his, though I could not see his face, because he was bent
down at work; and wishing him a safe delivery, I turned to
and helped the rest get out the mail-sacks. It made a great
pyramid by the roadside when it was all out. When they had
mended the thoroughbrace we filled the two boots again, but
put no mail on top, and only half as much inside as there was
before. The conductor bent all the seat-backs down, and then
filled the coach just half full of mail-bags from end to end.
We objected loudly to this, for it left us no seats. But the
conductor was wiser than we, and said a bed was better than
seats, and moreover, this plan would protect his thoroughbraces.
We never wanted any seats after that. The lazy bed was infi-
nitely preferable. I had many an exciting day, subsequently,
lying on it reading the statutes and the dictionary, and won-
dering how the characters would turn out.

     The conductor said he would send back a guard from the
next station to take charge of the abandoned mail-bags, and
we drove on.

     It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped

     After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgot-
ten, we three climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and
let the conductor have our bed for a nap. And by and by,
when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on my face on top
of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept for
an hour or more. That will give one an appreciable idea of
those matchless roads. Instinct will make a sleeping man grip
a fast hold of the railing when the stage jolts, but when it only
swings and sways, no grip is necessary. Overland drivers and
conductors used to sit in their places and sleep thirty or forty
minutes at a time, on good roads, while spinning along at the
rate of eight or ten miles an hour. I saw them do it, often.
There was no danger about it; a sleeping man will seize the
irons in time when the coach jolts. These men were hard
worked, and it was not possible for them to stay awake all the
time.

     By and by we passed through Marysville, and over the
Big Blue and Little Sandy; thence about a mile, and entered
Nebraska. About a mile further on, we came to the Big
Sandy -- one hundred and eighty miles from St. Joseph.

     As the sun was going down, we saw the first specimen of

     Our party made this specimen "hump himself," as the

     As the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we
made preparation for bed. We stirred up the hard
leather letter-sacks, and the knotty canvas bags of printed
matter (knotty and uneven because of projecting ends and
corners of magazines, boxes and books). We stirred them up
and redisposed them in such a way as to make our bed as level
as possible. And we did improve it, too, though after all our
work it had an upheaved and billowy look about it, like a little
piece of a stormy sea. Next we hunted up our boots from
odd nooks among the mail-bags where they had settled, and
put them on. Then we got down our coats, vests, pantaloons
and heavy woolen shirts, from the arm-loops where they had
been swinging all day, and clothed ourselves in them -- for,
there being no ladies either at the stations or in the coach, and
the weather being hot, we had looked to our comfort by strip-
ping to our underclothing, at nine o'clock in the morning.
All things being now ready, we stowed the uneasy Dictionary
where it would lie as quiet as possible, and placed the water-
canteens and pistols where we could find them in the dark.
Then we smoked a final pipe, and swapped a final yarn; after
which, we put the pipes, tobacco and bag of coin in snug holes
and caves among the mail-bags, and then fastened down the
coach curtains all around, and made the place as "dark as the
inside of a cow," as the conductor phrased it in his pictur-
esque way. It was certainly as dark as any place could be --
nothing was even dimly visible in it. And finally, we rolled

     Whenever the stage stopped to change horses, we would
wake up, and try to recollect where we were -- and succeed --
and in a minute or two the stage would be off again, and we
likewise. We began to get into country, now, threaded
here and there with little streams. These had high, steep
banks on each side, and every time we flew down one bank
and scrambled up the other, our party inside got mixed some-
what. First we would all be down in a pile at the forward
end of the stage, nearly in a sitting posture, and in a second
we would shoot to the other end, and stand on our heads. And
we would sprawl and kick, too, and ward off ends and corners
of mail-bags that came lumbering over us and about us; and
as the dust rose from the tumult, we would all sneeze in chorus,
and the majority of us would grumble, and probably say some
hasty thing, like: "Take your elbow out of my ribs! -- can't
you quit crowding?"

     Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the
other, the Unabridged Dictionary would come too; and every

     Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable night.
It wore gradually away, and when at last a cold gray light was
visible through the puckers and chinks in the curtains, we
yawned and stretched with satisfaction, shed our cocoons, and
felt that we had slept as much as was necessary. By and by,
as the sun rose up and warmed the world, we pulled off our
clothes and got ready for breakfast. We were just pleasantly
in time, for five minutes afterward the driver sent the weird
music of his bugle winding over the grassy solitudes, and
presently we detected a low hut or two in the distance. Then
the rattling of the coach, the clatter of our six horses' hoofs,
and the driver's crisp commands, awoke to a louder and stronger
emphasis, and we went sweeping down on the station at our
smartest speed. It was fascinating -- that old overland stage-
coaching.

     We jumped out in undress uniform. The driver tossed his
gathered reins out on the ground, gaped and stretched com-
placently, drew off his heavy buckskin gloves with great deliber-
ation and insufferable dignity -- taking not the slightest notice
of a dozen solicitous inquiries after his health, and humbly face-
tious and flattering accostings, and obsequious tenders of service,
from five or six hairy and half-civilized station-keepers and
hostlers who were nimbly unhitching our steeds and bringing
the fresh team out of the stables -- for in the eyes of the stage-
driver of that day, station-keepers and hostlers were a sort of
good enough low creatures, useful in their place, and helping
to make up a world, but not the kind of beings which a person
of distinction could afford to concern himself with; while, on
the contrary, in the eyes of the station-keeper and the hostler,

     The hostlers and station-keepers treated the really power-
ful conductor of the coach merely with the best of what was
their idea of civility, but the driver was the only being they
bowed down to and worshipped. How admiringly they
would gaze up at him in his high seat as he gloved himself
with lingering deliberation, while some happy hostler held the
bunch of reins aloft, and waited patiently for him to take it!
And how they would bombard him with glorifying ejaculations
as he cracked his long whip and went careering away.

     The station buildings were long, low huts, made of sun-
dried, mud-colored bricks, laid up without mortar (adobes, the
Spaniards call these bricks, and Americans shorten it to
'dobies). The roofs, which had no slant to them worth speak-
ing of, were thatched and then sodded or covered with a thick
layer of earth, and from this sprung a pretty rank growth of

     By the door of the station-
keeper's den, outside, was a
tin wash-basin, on the ground.
Near it was a pail of water
and a piece of yellow bar
soap, and from the eaves
hung a hoary blue woolen
shirt, significantly -- but this
latter was the station-keeper's
private towel, and only two
persons in all the party
might venture to use it -- the
stage-driver and the con-
ductor. The latter would not, from a sense of decency; the
former would not, because he did not choose to encourage the
advances of a station-keeper. We had towels -- in the valise;
they might as well have been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We
(and the conductor) used our handkerchiefs, and the driver his
pantaloons and sleeves. By the door, inside, was fastened a
small old-fashioned looking-glass frame, with two little frag-

     The station-keeper up-
ended a disk of last week's
bread, of the shape and size
of an old-time cheese, and
carved some slabs from it
which were as good as Ni-
cholson pavement, and ten-
derer.

     He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but only the
experienced old hands made out to eat it, for it was condemned
army bacon which the United States would not feed to its
soldiers in the forts, and the stage company had bought it
cheap for the sustenance of their passengers and employes.
We may have found this condemned army bacon further out
on the plains than the section I am locating it in, but we found
it -- there is no gainsaying that.

     Then he poured for us a beverage which he called " Slum-

     We could not eat the bread or the meat, nor drink the
"slumgullion." And when I looked at that melancholy vinegar-
cruet, I thought of the anecdote (a very, very old one, even
at that day) of the traveler who sat down to a table which
had nothing on it but a mackerel and a pot of mustard. He
asked the landlord if this was all. The landlord said:

     "All! Why, thunder and lightning, I should think there
was mackerel enough there for six."

     "But I don't like mackerel."

     "Oh -- then help yourself to the mustard."

     In other days I had considered it a good, a very good,
anecdote, but there was a dismal plausibility about it, here,
that took all the humor out of it.

     Our breakfast was before us, but our teeth were idle.

     I tasted and smelt, and said I would take coffee, I believed.
The station-boss stopped dead still, and glared at me speech-
less. At last, when he came to, he turned away and said, as one
who communes with himself upon a matter too vast to grasp:

     "Coffee! Well, if that
don't go clean ahead of me,
I'm d -- d!"

     We could not eat, and
there was no conversation
among the hostlers and
herdsmen -- we all sat at the
same board. At least there
was no conversation further
than a single hurried request,
now and then, from one em-
ploye to another. It was
always in the same form,
and always gruffly friendly.
Its western freshness and
novelty startled me, at first,
and interested me; but it
presently grew monotonous,
and lost its charm. It was:

     "Pass the bread, you son
of a skunk!" No, I forget -- skunk was not the word; it seems
to me it was still stronger than that; I know it was, in fact,
but it is gone from my memory, apparently. However, it is
no matter -- probably it was too strong for print, anyway. It
is the landmark in my memory which tells me where I first
encountered the vigorous new vernacular of the occidental
plains and mountains.

     We gave up the breakfast, and paid our dollar apiece and
went back to our mail-bag bed in the coach, and found com-
fort in our pipes. Right here we suffered the first diminution
of our princely state. We left our six fine horses and took six
mules in their place. But they were wild Mexican fellows, and

     So we flew along all day. At 2 P.M. the belt of timber
that fringes the North Platte and marks its windings through
the vast level floor of the Plains came in sight. At 4 P.M.
we crossed a branch of the river, and at 5 P.M. we crossed
the Platte itself, and landed at Fort Kearney, fifty-six hours
out from St. Joe -- THREE HUNDRED MILES!

     Now that was stage-coaching on the great overland, ten or
twelve years ago, when perhaps not more than ten men in
America, all told, expected to live to see a railroad follow that
route to the Pacific. But the railroad is there, now, and it
pictures a thousand odd comparisons and contrasts in my mind
to read the following sketch, in the New York Times, of a
recent trip over almost the very ground I have been describ-
ing. I can scarcely comprehend the new state of things:

     "ACROSS THE CONTINENT.

     "At 4.20 P.M., Sunday, we rolled out of the station at Omaha, and started
westward on our long jaunt. A couple of hours out, dinner was announced --
an "event" to those of us who had yet to experience what it is to eat in one
of Pullman's hotels on wheels; so, stepping into the car next forward of
our sleeping palace, we found ourselves in the dining-car. It was a reve-
lation to us, that first dinner on Sunday. And though we continued to dine
for four days, and had as many breakfasts and suppers, our whole party
never ceased to admire the perfection of the arrangements, and the marvelous
results achieved. Upon tables covered with snowy linen, and garnished with
services of solid silver, Ethiop waiters, flitting about in spotless white, placed
as by magic a repast at which Delmonico himself could have had no occa-
sion to blush; and, indeed, in some respects it would be hard for that distin-
guished chef to match our menu; for, in addition to all that ordinarily makes

---

-047-

PULLMAN CAR DINING-SALOON.

504EAF. Page 047. In-line image of four people sitting at a dining-car table on a railroad.
up a first-chop dinner, had we not our antelope steak (the gormand who has
not experienced this -- bah! what does he know of the feast of fat things?)
our delicious mountain-brook trout, and choice fruits and berries, and (sauce
piquant and unpurchasable!) our sweet-scented, appetite-compelling air of
the prairies? You may depend upon it, we all did justice to the good things,
and as we washed them down with bumpers of sparkling Krug, whilst we
sped along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, agreed it was the fastest living
we had ever experienced. (We beat that, however, two days afterward
when we made twenty-seven miles in twenty-seven minutes, while our Cham-
pagne glasses filled to the brim spilled not a drop!) After dinner we re-
paired to our drawing-room car, and, as it was Sabbath eve, intoned some of
the grand old hymns -- "Praise God from whom," etc.; "Shining Shore,"
"Coronation," etc. -- the voices of the men singers and of the women singers
blending sweetly in the evening air, while our train, with its great, glaring
Polyphemus eye, lighting up long vistas of prairie, rushed into the night
and the Wild. Then to bed in luxurious couches, where we slept the sleep
of the just and only awoke the next morning (Monday) at eight o'clock, to
find ourselves at the crossing of the North Platte, three hundred miles from
Omaha -- fifteen hours and forty minutes out."

     ANOTHER night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil.
But morning came, by and by. It was another glad
awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses of level greensward,
bright sunlight, an impressive solitude utterly without visible
human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of
such amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed
close at hand were more than three miles away. We resumed
undress uniform, climbed a-top of the flying coach, dangled
our legs over the side, shouted occasionally at our frantic
mules, merely to see them lay their ears back and scamper
faster, tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing away,
and leveled an outlook over the world-wide carpet about us
for things new and strange to gaze at. Even at this day it
thrills me through and through to think of the life, the glad-
ness and the wild sense of freedom that used to make the
blood dance in my veins on those fine overland mornings!

     Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prai-
rie-dog villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I
remember rightly, this latter was the regular cayote ( pro-
nounced ky-o-te) of the farther deserts. And if it was, he
was not a pretty creature or respectable either, for I got well
acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak with con-
fidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking

     Our new conductor (just shipped) had been without sleep
for twenty hours. Such a thing was very frequent.
From St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, by stage-
coach, was nearly nineteen hundred miles, and the trip was
often made in fifteen days (the cars do it in four and a half,
now), but the time specified in the mail contracts, and required
by the schedule, was eighteen or nineteen days, if I remember
rightly. This was to make fair allowance for winter storms
and snows, and other unavoidable causes of detention. The
stage company had everything under strict discipline and good
system. Over each two hundred and fifty miles of road they
placed an agent or superintendent, and invested him with
great authority. His beat or jurisdiction of two hundred and
fifty miles was called a "division." He purchased horses,
mules harness, and food for men and beasts, and distributed
these things among his stage stations, from time to time, ac-
cording to his judgment of what each station needed. He
erected station buildings and dug wells. He attended to the
paying of the station-keepers, hostlers, drivers and blacksmiths,
and discharged them whenever he chose. He was a very,
very great man in his "division" -- a kind of Grand Mogul, a
Sultan of the Indies, in whose presence common men were
modest of speech and manner, and in the glare of whose great-
ness even the dazzling stage-driver dwindled to a penny dip.
There were about eight of these kings, all told, on the over-
land route.

     Next in rank and importance to the division-agent came the

     Next in real and official rank and importance, after the
conductor, came my delight, the driver -- next in real but not
in apparent importance -- for we have seen that in the eyes of
the common herd the driver was to the conductor as an admi-
ral is to the captain of the flag-ship. The driver's beat was
pretty long, and his sleeping-time at the stations pretty short,

     The station-keepers, hostlers, etc., were low, rough charac-
ters, as already described; and from western Nebraska to
Nevada a considerable sprinkling of them might be fairly set
down as outlaws -- fugitives from justice, criminals whose best
security was a section of country which was without law and
without even the pretence of it. When the "division-agent"

     A great portion of this vast machinery -- these hundreds of
men and coaches, and thousands of mules and horses -- was in
the hands of Mr. Ben Holliday. All the western half of the
business was in his hands. This reminds me of an incident of
Palestine travel which is pertinent here, and so I will transfer
it just in the language in which I find it set down in my
Holy Land note-book:

     No doubt everybody has heard of Ben Holliday -- a man of prodigious
energy, who used to send mails and passengers flying across the continent

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-058-

JACK AND THE ELDERLY PILGRIM.

504EAF. Page 058. In-line image of two men talking. One man is in a top hat and black suit, while the other man is in a dapper pair of plaid trousers, and a beanie cap with fringe.
in his overland stage-coaches like a very whirlwind -- two thousand long
miles in fifteen days and a half, by the watch! But this fragment of his-
tory is not about Ben Holliday, but about a young New York boy by the
name of Jack, who traveled with our small party of pilgrims in the Holy
Land (and who had traveled to California in Mr. Holliday's overland coaches
three years before, and had by no means forgotten it or lost his gushing ad-
miration of Mr. H.) Aged nineteen. Jack was a good boy -- a good-hearted
and always well-meaning boy, who had been reared in the city of New
York, and although he was bright and knew a great many useful things,
his Scriptural education had been a good deal neglected -- to such a degree,
indeed, that all Holy Land history was fresh and new to him, and all Bible
names mysteries that had never disturbed his virgin ear. Also in our party
was an elderly pilgrim who was the reverse of Jack, in that he was learned
in the Scriptures and an enthusiast concerning them. He was our encyclo-
pedia, and we were never tired of listening to his speeches, nor he of making
them. He never passed a celebrated locality, from Bashan to Bethlehem,
without illuminating it with an oration. One day, when camped near the
ruins of Jericho, he burst forth with something like this:

     "Jack, do you see that range of mountains over yonder that bounds the
Jordan valley? The mountains of Moab, Jack! Think of it, my boy -- the

---

-059-

actual mountains of Moab -- renowned in Scripture history! We are
actually standing face to face with those illustrious crags and peaks -- and
for all we know" [dropping his voice impressively], "our eyes may be
resting at this very moment upon the spot where lies the mysterious
grave of Moses! Think of it, Jack!"

     "Moses who?" (falling inflection).

     "Moses who! Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself -- you ought to
be ashamed of such criminal ignorance. Why, Moses, the great guide, sol-
dier, poet, lawgiver of ancient Israel! Jack, from this spot where we stand,
to Egypt, stretches a fearful desert three hundred miles in extent -- and
across that desert that wonderful man brought the children of Israel! --
guiding them with unfailing sagacity for forty years over the sandy desola-
tion and among the obstructing rocks and hills, and landed them at last, safe
and sound, with insight of this very spot; and where we now stand they
entered the Promised Land with anthems of rejoicing! It was a wonderful,
wonderful thing to do, Jack! Think of it!"

     "Forty years? Only three hundred miles? Humph! Ben Holliday
would have fetched them through in thirty-six hours!"

     The boy meant no harm. He did not know that he had said anything
that was wrong or irreverent. And so no one scolded him or felt offended
with him -- and nobody could but some ungenerous spirit incapable of
excusing the heedless blunders of a boy.

     At noon on the fifth day out, we arrived at the "Crossing
of the South Platte," alias "Julesburg," alias "Overland
City," four hundred and seventy miles from St. Joseph -- the
strangest, quaintest, funniest frontier town that our untraveled
eyes had ever stared at and been astonished with.

     IT did seem strange enough to see a town again after what
appeared to us such a long acquaintance with deep, still,
almost lifeless and houseless solitude! We tumbled out into the
busy street feeling like meteoric people crumbled off the corner
of some other world, and wakened up suddenly in this. For an
hour we took as much interest in Overland City as if we had
never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to spare
was because we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous
affair, called a "mud-wagon") and transfer our freight of mails.

     Presently we got under way again. We came to the
shallow, yellow, muddy South Platte, with its low banks and
its scattering flat sand-bars and pigmy islands -- a melancholy
stream straggling through the centre of the enormous flat
plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with the
naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on
either bank. The Platte was "up," they said -- which made
me wish I could see it when it was down, if it could look any
sicker and sorrier. They said it was a dangerous stream to
cross, now, because its quicksands were liable to swallow up
horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford
it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once
or twice in midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands
so threateningly that we half believed we had dreaded and
avoided the sea all our lives to be shipwrecked in a " mud-
wagon" in the middle of a desert at last. But we dragged
through and sped away toward the setting sun.

     Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred
and fifty miles from St. Joseph,
our mud-wagon broke down.
We were to be delayed five or
six hours, and therefore we
took horses, by invitation, and
joined a party who were just
starting on a buffalo hunt. It
was noble sport galloping over
the plain in the dewy fresh-
ness of the morning, but our
part of the hunt ended in
disaster and disgrace, for a
wounded buffalo bull chased
the passenger Bemis nearly
two miles, and then he forsook
his horse and took to a lone
tree. He was very sullen
about the matter for some
twenty-four hours, but at last
he began to soften little by lit-
tle, and finally he said:

     "Well, it was not funny,
and there was no sense in those
gawks making themselves so
facetious over it. I tell you
I was angry in earnest for
awhile. I should have shot
that long gangly lubber they
called Hank, if I could have
done it without crippling six
or seven other people -- but of
course I couldn't, the old ` Al-
len's' so confounded compre-
hensive. I wish those loafers
had been up in the tree; they
wouldn't have wanted to laugh so. If I had had a horse

     "Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in the tree
with you?"

     "Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you talk.
Of course I didn't. No man could do that. It fell in the
tree when it came down."

     "Oh -- exactly."

     "Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end
of it to the limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and
capable of sustaining tons. I made a slip-noose in the other
end, and then hung it down to see the length. It reached
down twenty-two feet -- half way to the ground. I then
loaded every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt
satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one
thing that I dread, all right -- but if he does, all right any-
how -- I am fixed for him. But don't you know that the very
thing a man dreads is the thing that always happens? Indeed
it is so. I watched the bull, now, with anxiety -- anxiety

     IN a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our
necks and watching for the "pony-rider" -- the fleet mes-
senger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacra-
mento, carrying letters nineteen hundred miles in eight days!
Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh and blood
to do! The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, brim-
ful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the
day or night his watch came on, and no matter whether it was
winter or summer, raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting, or
whether his "beat" was a level straight road or a crazy trail
over mountain crags and precipices, or whether it led through
peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with hostile Indians,
he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be off like
the wind! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on
duty. He rode fifty miles without stopping, by daylight,
moonlight, starlight, or through the blackness of darkness --
just as it happened. He rode a splendid horse that was born
for a racer and fed and lodged like a gentleman; kept him
at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he came crash-
ing up to the station where stood two men holding fast a fresh,
impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made
in the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and
were out of sight before the spectator could get hardly the
ghost of a look. Both rider and horse went "flying light."
The rider's dress was thin, and fitted close; he wore a " round-
about," and a skull-cap, and tucked his pantaloons into his

     We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to
see a pony-rider, but somehow or other all that passed us and
all that met us managed to streak by in the night, and so we
heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift phantom of the
desert was gone before we could get our heads out of the win-
dows. But now we were expecting one along every moment,
and would see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver
exclaims:

     "Here he comes!"

     Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained

     So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that
but for the flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on
a mail-sack after the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we
might have doubted whether we had seen any actual horse and
man at all, maybe.

     We rattled through Scott's Bluffs Pass, by and by. It was
along here somewhere that we first came across genuine and
unmistakable alkali water in the road, and we cordially hailed
it as a first-class curiosity, and a thing to be mentioned with
eclat in letters to the ignorant at home. This water gave the
road a soapy appearance, and in many places the ground looked
as if it had been whitewashed. I think the strange alkali
water excited us as much as any wonder we had come upon
yet, and I know we felt very complacent and conceited, and
better satisfied with life after we had added it to our list of
things which we had seen and some other people had not. In
a small way we were the same sort of simpletons as those who
climb unnecessarily the perilous peaks of Mont Blanc and

     This is all very
fine, but let us not be
carried away by excitement, but ask calmly, how does this per-
son feel about it in his cooler moments next day, with six or
seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on top of him?

     We crossed the sand hills near the scene of the Indian
mail robbery and massacre of 1856, wherein the driver and
conductor perished, and also all the passengers but one, it was
supposed; but this must have been a mistake, for at different
times afterward on the Pacific coast I was personally ac-
quainted with a hundred and thirty-three or four people who
were wounded during that massacre, and barely escaped with

     The most trustworthy tradition avers, however, that only
one man, a person named Babbitt, survived the massacre, and
he was desperately wounded. He dragged himself on his
hands and knee (for one leg was broken) to a station several
miles away. He did it during portions of two nights, lying
concealed one day and part of another, and for more than
forty hours suffering unimaginable anguish from hunger, thirst
and bodily pain. The Indians robbed the coach of everything
it contained, including quite an amount of treasure.

     WE passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh
morning out we found ourselves in the Black Hills,
with Laramie Peak at our elbow (apparently) looming vast
and solitary -- a deep, dark, rich indigo blue in hue, so por-
tentously did the old colossus frown under his beetling
brows of storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in
reality, but he only seemed removed a little beyond the low
ridge at our right. We breakfasted at Horse-Shoe Station,
six hundred and seventy-six miles out from St. Joseph. We
had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during the
afternoon we passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great dis-
comfort all the time we were in the neighborhood, being
aware that many of the trees we dashed by at arm's length
concealed a lurking Indian or two. During the preceding
night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet through the pony-
rider's jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because
pony-riders were not allowed to stop and inquire into such
things except when killed. As long as they had life enough
left in them they had to stick to the horse and ride, even if
the Indians had been waiting for them a week, and were en-
tirely out of patience. About two hours and a half before we
arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it had
fired four times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air
that the Indian had "skipped around so's to spile everything
-- and ammunition's blamed skurse, too." The most natural

     We shut the blinds down very tightly that first night in
the hostile Indian country, and lay on our arms. We slept
on them some, but most of the time we only lay on them.
We did not talk much, but kept quiet and listened. It was
an inky-black night, and occasionally rainy. We were among
woods and rocks, hills and gorges -- so shut in, in fact, that
when we peeped through a chink in a curtain, we could dis-
cern nothing. The driver and conductor on top were still,
too, or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the
way of men in the midst of invisible dangers. We listened
to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the grinding of the

     "Help! help! help!" [It was our driver's voice.]

     "Kill him! Kill him like a dog!"

     "I'm being murdered! Will no man lend me a pistol?"

     "Look out! head him off! head him off!"

     [Two pistol shots; a confusion of voices and the trampling
of many feet, as if a crowd were closing and surging together
around some object; several heavy, dull blows, as with a club;
a voice that said appealingly, "Don't, gentlemen, please don't
-- I'm a dead man!" Then a fainter groan, and another blow,
and away sped the stage into the darkness, and left the grisly
mystery behind us.]

     What a startle it was! Eight seconds would amply cover
the time it occupied -- maybe even five would do it. We
only had time to plunge at a curtain and unbuckle and unbut-
ton part of it in an awkward and hindering flurry, when our
whip cracked sharply overhead, and we went rumbling and
thundering away, down a mountain "grade."

     We fed on that mystery the rest of the night -- what was
left of it, for it was waning fast. It had to remain a present
mystery, for all we could get from the conductor in answer to
our hails was something that sounded, through the clatter of
the wheels, like "Tell you in the morning!"

     So we lit our pipes and opened the corner of a curtain for a
chimney, and lay there in the dark, listening to each other's
story of how he first felt and how many thousand Indians he
first thought had hurled themselves upon us, and what his
remembrance of the subsequent sounds was, and the order of
their occurrence. And we theorized, too, but there was never
a theory that would account for our driver's voice being out
there, nor yet account for his Indian murderers talking such
good English, if they were Indians.

     So we chatted and smoked the rest of the night comfort-
ably away, our boding anxiety being somehow marvelously
dissipated by the real presence of something to be anxious
about.

     We never did get much satisfaction about that dark occur-
rence. All that we could make out of the odds and ends of
the information we gathered in the morning, was that the
disturbance occurred at a station; that we changed drivers
there, and that the driver that got off there had been talking
roughly about some of the outlaws that infested the region
("for there wasn't a man around there but had a price on his
head and didn't dare show himself in the settlements," the
conductor said); he had talked roughly about these characters,
and ought to have "drove up there with his pistol cocked and
ready on the seat alongside of him, and begun business him-
self, because any softy would know they would be laying for
him."

     That was all we could gather, and we could see that nei-
ther the conductor nor the new driver were much concerned
about the matter. They plainly had little respect for a man who
would deliver offensive opinions of people and then be so sim-
ple as to come into their presence unprepared to "back his judg-
ment," as they pleasantly phrased the killing of any fellow-being

     "I tell you it's as much as Slade himself wants to do!"

     This remark created an entire revolution in my curiosity.
I cared nothing now about the Indians, and even lost interest
in the murdered driver. There was such magic in that name,
Slade! Day or night, now, I stood always ready to drop any
subject in hand, to listen to something new about Slade and
his ghastly exploits. Even before we got to Overland City,
we had begun to hear about Slade and his "division" (for he
was a "division-agent") on the Overland; and from the hour
we had left Overland City we had heard drivers and conduc-
tors talk about only three things -- "Californy," the Nevada
silver mines, and this desperado Slade. And a deal the most
of the talk was about Slade. We had gradually come to have
a realizing sense of the fact that Slade was a man whose heart
and hands and soul were steeped in the blood of offenders
against his dignity; a man who awfully avenged all injuries,
affronts, insults or slights, of whatever kind -- on the spot if he
could, years afterward if lack of earlier opportunity compelled
it; a man whose hate tortured him day and night till ven-
geance appeased it -- and not an ordinary vengeance either,
but his enemy's absolute death -- nothing less; a man whose
face would light up with a terrible joy when he surprised a
foe and had him at a disadvantage. A high and efficient
servant of the Overland, an outlaw among outlaws and yet
their relentless scourge, Slade was at once the most bloody,
the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that inhab-
ited the savage fastnesses of the mountains.

     Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and
conductors had been about this man Slade, ever since
the day before we reached Julesburg. In order that the east-
ern reader may have a clear conception of what a Rocky Moun-
tain desperado is, in his highest state of development, I will
reduce all this mass of overland gossip to one straightforward
narrative, and present it in the following shape:

     Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At about
twenty-six years of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled
the country. At St. Joseph, Missouri, he joined one of the
early California-bound emigrant trains, and was given the post
of train-master. One day on the plains he had an angry dis-
pute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their
revolvers. But the driver was the quicker artist, and had his
weapon cocked first. So Slade said it was a pity to waste life
on so small a matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown
on the ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The
unsuspecting driver agreed, and threw down his pistol -- where-
upon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and shot him dead!

     He made his escape, and lived a wild life for awhile, divid-
ing his time between fighting Indians and avoiding an Illinois
sheriff, who had been sent to arrest him for his first murder.
It is said that in one Indian battle he killed three savages with
his own hand, and afterward cut their ears off and sent them,
with his compliments, to the chief of the tribe.

     Slade soon gained a name for fearless resolution, and this

     AND sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did
hear of him again. News came to the Pacific coast
that the Vigilance Committee in Montana (whither Slade had
removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him. I find an
account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a
paragraph from in the last chapter -- "The Vigilantes of Mon-
tana; being a Reliable Account of the Capture, Trial and
Execution of Henry Plummer's Notorious Road Agent Band:
By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Virginia City, M. T." Mr.
Dimsdale's chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of
how the people of the frontier deal with criminals when the
courts of law prove inefficient. Mr. Dimsdale makes two re-
marks about Slade, both of which are accurately descriptive,
and one of which is exceedingly picturesque: "Those who
saw him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be
a kind husband, a most hospitable host and a courteous gentle-
man; on the contrary, those who met him when maddened
with liquor and surrounded by a gang of armed roughs, would
pronounce him a fiend incarnate." And this: "From Fort
Kearney, west, he was feared a great deal more than the Al-
mighty." For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expres-
sion, I will "back" that sentence against anything in literature.
Mr. Dimsdale's narrative is as follows. In all places where
italics occur, they are mine:

     After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the Vigi-
lantes considered that their work was nearly ended. They had freed the

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-091-

country of highwaymen and murderers to a great extent, and they deter-
mined that in the absence of the regular civil authority they would estab-
lish a People's Court where all offenders should be tried by judge and jury.
This was the nearest approach to social order that the circumstances per-
mitted, and, though strict legal authority was wanting, yet the people were
firmly determined to maintain its efficiency, and to enforce its decrees. It
may here be mentioned that the overt act which was the last round on the
fatal ladder leading to the scaffold on which Slade perished, was the tearing
in pieces and stamping upon a writ of this court, followed by his arrest of
the Judge, Alex. Davis, by authority of a presented Derringer, and with his
own hands.

     J. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a Vigilante; he openly
boasted of it, and said he knew all that they knew. He was never accused,
or even suspected, of either murder or robbery, committed in this Territory
(the latter crime was never laid to his charge, in any place); but that he
had killed several men in other localities was notorious, and his bad repu-
tation in this respect was a most powerful argument in determining his
fate, when he was finally arrested for the offence above mentioned. On
returning from Milk River he became more and more addicted to drinking,
until at last it was a common feat for him and his friends to "take the
town." He and a couple of his dependents might often be seen on one
horse, galloping through the streets, shouting and yelling, firing revolvers,
etc. On many occasions he would ride his horse into stores, break up
bars, toss the scales out of doors and use most insulting language to par-
ties present. Just previous to the day of his arrest, he had given a fearful
beating to one of his followers; but such was his influence over them that
the man wept bitterly at the gallows, and begged for his life with all his
power. It had become quite common, when Slade was on a spree, for the
shop-keepers and citizens to close the stores and put out all the lights; being
fearful of some outrage at his hands. For his wanton destruction of goods
and furniture, he was always ready to pay, when sober, if he had money;
but there were not a few who regarded payment as small satisfaction for
the outrage, and these men were his personal enemies.

     From time to time Slade received warnings from men that he well
knew would not deceive him, of the certain end of his conduct. There
was not a moment, for weeks previous to his arrest, in which the public
did not expect to hear of some bloody outrage. The dread of his very
name, and the presence of the armed band of hangers-on who followed him
alone prevented a resistance which must certainly have ended in the instant
murder or mutilation of the opposing party.

     Slade was frequently arrested by order of the court whose organization
we have described, and had treated it with respect by paying one or two
fines and promising to pay the rest when he had money; but in the transac-
tion that occurred at this crisis, he forgot even this caution, and goaded by
passion and the hatred of restraint, he sprang into the embrace of death.

     Slade had been drunk and "cutting up" all night. He and his companions

---

-092-

SLADE IN COURT.

504EAF. Page 092. In-line image of a group of fighting men. One man has thrown off his hat and is raving, while another aims a gun at the angered man.
had made the town a perfect hell. In the morning, J. M. Fox, the sheriff,
met him, arrested him, took him into court and commenced reading a war-
rant that he had for his arrest, by way of arraignment. He became uncon-
trollably furious, and seizing the writ, he tore it up, threw it on the ground
and stamped upon it. The clicking of the locks of his companions' revolv-
ers was instantly heard, and a crisis was expected. The sheriff did not
attempt his retention; but being at least as prudent as he was valiant, he
succumbed, leaving Slade the master of the situation and the conqueror
and ruler of the courts, law and law-makers. This was a declaration of
war, and was so accepted. The Vigilance Committee now felt that the
question of social order and the preponderance of the law-abiding citizens
had then and there to be decided. They knew the character of Slade, and
they were well aware that they must submit to his rule without murmur,
or else that he must be dealt with in such fashion as would prevent his
being able to wreak his vengeance on the committee, who could never have
hoped to live in the Territory secure from outrage or death, and who could

---

-093-

never leave it without encountering his friends, whom his victory would
have emboldened and stimulated to a pitch that would have rendered
them reckless of consequences. The day previous he had ridden into
Dorris's store, and on being requested to leave, he drew his revolver
and threatened to kill the gentleman who spoke to him. Another saloon
he had led his horse into, and buying a bottle of wine, he tried to make
the animal drink it. This was not considered an uncommon performance,
as he had often entered saloons and commenced firing at the lamps, caus-
ing a wild stampede.

     A leading member of the committee met Slade, and informed him in the
quiet, earnest manner of one who feels the importance of what he is saying:
"Slade, get your horse at once, and go home, or there will be -- to pay."
Slade started and took a long look, with his dark and piercing eyes, at the
gentleman. "What do you mean?" said he. "You have no right to ask
me what I mean," was the quiet reply, "get your horse at once, and remem-
ber what I tell you." After a short pause he promised to do so, and actually
got into the saddle; but, being still intoxicated, he began calling aloud to
one after another of his friends, and at last seemed to have forgotten the
warning he had received and became again uproarious, shouting the name
of a well-known courtezan in company with those of two men whom he
considered heads of the committee, as a sort of challenge; perhaps, how-
ever, as a simple act of bravado. It seems probable that the intimation of
personal danger he had received had not been forgotten entirely; though
fatally for him, he took a foolish way of showing his remembrance of it.
He sought out Alexander Davis, the Judge of the Court, and drawing a
cocked Derringer, he presented it at his head, and told him that he should
hold him as a hostage for his own safety. As the judge stood perfectly
quiet, and offered no resistance to his captor, no further outrage followed on
this score. Previous to this, on account of the critical state of affairs, the
committee had met, and at last resolved to arrest him. His execution had
not been agreed upon, and, at that time, would have been negatived, most
assuredly. A messenger rode down to Nevada to inform the leading men
of what was on hand, as it was desirable to show that there was a feeling
of unanimity on the subject, all along the gulch.

     The miners turned out almost en masse, leaving their work and forming
in solid column, about six hundred strong, armed to the teeth, they marched
up to Virginia. The leader of the body well knew the temper of his men
on the subject. He spurred on ahead of them, and hastily calling a meet-
ing of the executive, he told them plainly that the miners meant " busi-
ness," and that, if they came up, they would not stand in the street to be
shot down by Slade's friends; but that they would take him and hang him.
The meeting was small, as the Virginia men were loath to act at all. This
momentous announcement of the feeling of the Lower Town was made to
a cluster of men, who were deliberating behind a wagon, at the rear of a
store on Main street.

     The committee were most unwilling to proceed to extremities. All the

---

-094-

duty they had ever performed seemed as nothing to the task before them;
but they had to decide, and that quickly. It was finally agreed that if the
whole body of the miners were of the opinion that he should be hanged,
that the committee left it in their hands to deal with him. Off, at hot
speed, rode the leader of the Nevada men to join his command.

     Slade had found out what was intended, and the news sobered him in-
stantly. He went into P. S. Pfouts' store, where Davis was, and apologized
for his conduct, saying that he would take it all back.

     The head of the column now wheeled into Wallace street and marched up
at quick time. Halting in front of the store, the executive officer of the com-
mittee stepped forward and arrested Slade, who was at once informed of his
doom, and inquiry was made as to whether he had any business to settle.
Several parties spoke to him on the subject; but to all such inquiries he
turned a deaf ear, being entirely absorbed in the terrifying reflections on
his own awful position. He never ceased his entreaties for life, and to see
his dear wife. The unfortunate lady referred to, between whom and Slade
there existed a warm affection, was at this time living at their ranch on the
Madison. She was possessed of considerable personal attractions; tall,
well-formed, of graceful carriage, pleasing manners, and was, withal, an
accomplished horsewoman.

     A messenger from Slade rode at full speed to inform her of her hus-
band's arrest. In an instant she was in the saddle, and with all the energy
that love and despair could lend to an ardent temperament and a strong
physique, she urged her fleet charger over the twelve miles of rough and
rocky ground that intervened between her and the object of her passionate
devotion.

     Meanwhile a party of volunteers had made the necessary preparations
for the execution, in the valley traversed by the branch. Beneath the site
of Pfouts and Russell's stone building there was a corral, the gate-posts of
which were strong and high. Across the top was laid a beam, to which
the rope was fastened, and a dry-goods box served for the platform. To
this place Slade was marched, surrounded by a guard, composing the best
armed and most numerous force that has ever appeared in Montana Terri-
tory.

     The doomed man had so exhausted himself by tears, prayers and lamen-
tations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand under the fatal beam.
He repeatedly exclaimed, "My God! my God! must I die? Oh, my dear
wife!"

     On the return of the fatigue party, they encountered some friends of
Slade, staunch and reliable citizens and members of the committee, but who
were personally attached to the condemned. On hearing of his sentence,
one of them, a stout-hearted man, pulled out his handkerchief and walked
away, weeping like a child. Slade still begged to see his wife, most
piteously, and it seemed hard to deny his request; but the bloody conse-
quences that were sure to follow the inevitable attempt at a rescue, that her
presence and entreaties would have certainly incited, forbade the granting

---

-095-

A WIFE'S LAMENTATION.

of his request. Several gentlemen were sent for to see him, in his last mo-
ments, one of whom (Judge Davis) made a short address to the people; but
in such low tones as to be inaudible, save to a few in his immediate vicinity.
One of his friends, after exhausting his powers of entreaty, threw off his
coat and declared that the prisoner could not be hanged until he himself
was killed. A hundred guns were instantly leveled at him; whereupon he
turned and fled; but, being brought back, he was compelled to resume his
coat, and to give a promise of future peaceable demeanor.

     Scarcely a leading man in Virginia could be found, though numbers of
the citizens joined the ranks of the guard when the arrest was made. All
lamented the stern necessity which dictated the execution.

     Everything being ready, the command was given, "Men, do your duty,"
and the box being instantly slipped from beneath his feet, he died almost
instantaneously.

     The body was cut down and carried to the Virginia Hotel, where, in a
darkened room, it was scarcely laid out, when the unfortunate and bereaved
companion of the deceased arrived, at headlong speed, to find that all was
over, and that she was a widow. Her grief and heart-piercing cries were
terrible evidences of the depth of her attachment for her lost husband, and
a considerable period elapsed before she could regain the command of her
excited feelings.

     There is something about the desperado-nature that is
wholly unaccountable -- at least it looks unaccountable. It is
this. The true desperado is gifted with splendid courage, and
yet he will take the most infamous advantage of his enemy;
armed and free, he will stand up before a host and fight until

     WE had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and fowls
and vegetables -- a great variety and as great abun-
dance. We walked about the streets some, afterward, and
glanced in at shops and stores; and there was fascination in
surreptitiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mor-
mon. This was fairy-land to us, to all intents and purposes --
a land of enchantment, and goblins, and awful mystery. We
felt a curiosity to ask every child how many mothers it had,
and if it could tell them apart; and we experienced a thrill
every time a dwelling-house door opened and shut as we
passed, disclosing a glimpse of human heads and backs and
shoulders -- for we so longed to have a good satisfying look at
a Mormon family in all its comprehensive ampleness, disposed
in the customary concentric rings of its home circle.

     By and by the Acting Governor of the Territory intro-
duced us to other "Gentiles," and we spent a sociable hour
with them. "Gentiles" are people who are not Mormons.
Our fellow-passenger, Bemis, took care of himself, during this
part of the evening, and did not make an overpowering suc-
cess of it, either, for he came into our room in the hotel about
eleven o'clock, full of cheerfulness, and talking loosely, dis-
jointedly and indiscriminately, and every now and then tug-
ging out a ragged word by the roots that had more hiccups
than syllables in it. This, together with his hanging his coat
on the floor on one side of a chair, and his vest on the floor
on the other side, and piling his pants on the floor just in

     But we knew after-
ward that it was some-
thing he had been
drinking. It was the
exclusively Mormon
refresher, "valley tan."
Valley tan (or, at least,
one form of valley
tan) is a kind of whis-
ky, or first cousin to
it; is of Mormon in-
vention and manufac-
tured only in Utah.
Tradition says it is
made of (imported)
fire and brimstone. If
I remember rightly no public drinking saloons were allowed
in the kingdom by Brigham Young, and no private drinking
permitted among the faithful, except they confined themselves
to "valley tan."

     Next day we strolled about everywhere through the broad,
straight, level streets, and enjoyed the pleasant strangeness of
a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants with no loafers percepti-
ble in it; and no visible drunkards or noisy people; a limpid
stream rippling and dancing through every street in place of
a filthy gutter; block after block of trim dwellings, built of
"frame" and sunburned brick -- a great thriving orchard and
garden behind every one of them, apparently -- branches from
the street stream winding and sparkling among the garden
beds and fruit trees -- and a grand general air of neatness, re-
pair, thrift and comfort, around and about and over the whole.

     The armorial crest of my own State consisted of two dis-
solute bears holding up the
head of a dead and gone
cask between them and mak-
ing the pertinent remark,
"United, We Stand -- (hie!) --
Divided, We Fall." It was
always too figurative for the
author of this book. But
the Mormon crest was easy.
And it was simple, unosten-
tatious, and fitted like a
glove. It was a representa-
tion of a Golden Beehive,
with the bees all at work!

     The city lies in the edge of a level plain as broad as the
State of Connecticut, and
crouches close down to the
ground under a curving wall
of mighty mountains whose
heads are hidden in the
clouds, and whose shoulders
bear relics of the snows of
winter all the summer long.
Seen from one of these dizzy
heights, twelve or fifteen
miles off, Great Salt Lake
City is toned down and di-
minished till it is suggestive
of a child's toy-village re-
posing under the majestic protection of the Chinese wall.

     On some of those mountains, to the southwest, it had been

     Salt Lake City was healthy -- an extremely healthy city.
They declared there was only one physician in the place and
he was arrested every week regularly and held to answer under
the vagrant act for having "no visible means of support."
[They always give you a good substantial article of truth in

     We desired to visit the famous inland sea, the American
"Dead Sea," the great Salt Lake -- seventeen miles, horseback,
from the city -- for we had dreamed about it, and thought
about it, and talked about it, and yearned to see it, all the first
part of our trip; but now when it was only arm's length away
it had suddenly lost nearly every bit of its interest. And so
we put it off, in a sort of general way, till next day -- and that
was the last we ever thought of it. We dined with some hos-
pitable Gentiles; and visited the foundation of the prodigious
temple; and talked long with that shrewd Connecticut Yankee,
Heber C. Kimball (since deceased), a saint of high degree
and a mighty man of commerce.
We saw the "Tithing-House," and
the "Lion House," and I do not
know or remember how many
more church and government
buildings of various kinds and
curious names. We flitted hither
and thither and enjoyed every
hour, and picked up a great deal
of useful information and enter-
taining nonsense, and went to
bed at night satisfied.

     The second day, we made the acquaintance of Mr. Street
(since deceased) and put on white shirts and went and paid a
state visit to the king. He seemed a quiet, kindly, easy-man-
nered, dignified, self-possessed old gentleman of fifty-five or
sixty, and had a gentle craft in his eye that probably belonged
there. He was very simply dressed and was just taking off a
straw hat as we entered. He talked about Utah, and the In-
dians, and Nevada, and general American matters and ques-
tions, with our secretary and certain government officials who
came with us. But he never paid any attention to me, not-
withstanding I made several attempts to "draw him out" on

     MR. STREET was very busy with his telegraphic matters
-- and considering that he had eight or nine hundred
miles of rugged, snowy, uninhabited mountains, and waterless,
treeless, melancholy deserts to traverse with his wire, it was
natural and needful that he should be as busy as possible. He
could not go comfortably along and cut his poles by the road-
side, either, but they had to be hauled by ox teams across
those exhausting deserts -- and it was two days' journey from
water to water, in one or two of them. Mr. Street's contract
was a vast work, every way one looked at it; and yet to com-
prehend what the vague words "eight hundred miles of rug-
ged mountains and dismal deserts" mean, one must go over
the ground in person -- pen and ink descriptions cannot convey
the dreary reality to the reader. And after all, Mr. S.'s
mightiest difficulty turned out to be one which he had never
taken into the account at all. Unto Mormons he had sub-let
the hardest and heaviest half of his great undertaking, and all
of a sudden they concluded that they were going to make
little or nothing, and so they tranquilly threw their poles
overboard in mountain or desert, just as it happened when
they took the notion, and drove home and went about their
customary business! They were under written contract to
Mr. Street, but they did not care anything for that. They
said they would "admire" to see a "Gentile" force a Mormon
to fulfil a losing contract in Utah! And they made them-

     "I was in dismay. I was under heavy bonds to complete
my contract in a given time, and this disaster looked very
much like ruin. It was an astounding thing; it was such a
wholly unlooked-for difficulty, that I was entirely nonplussed.
I am a business man -- have always been a business man -- do
not know anything but business -- and so you can imagine how
like being struck by lightning it was to find myself in a country
where written contracts were worthless! -- that main security,
that sheet-anchor, that absolute necessity, of business. My
confidence left me. There was no use in making new con-
tracts -- that was plain. I talked with first one prominent
citizen and then another. They all sympathized with me, first
rate, but they did not know how to help me. But at last a
Gentile said, `Go to Brigham Young! -- these small fry cannot
do you any good.' I did not think much of the idea, for if
the law could not help me, what could an individual do who
had not even anything to do with either making the laws or
executing them? He might be a very good patriarch of a
church and preacher in its tabernacle, but something sterner
than religion and moral suasion was needed to handle a hun-
dred refractory, half-civilized sub-contractors. But what was
a man to do? I thought if Mr. Young could not do anything
else, he might probably be able to give me some advice and a
valuable hint or two, and so I went straight to him and laid
the whole case before him. He said very little, but he showed
strong interest all the way through. He examined all the
papers in detail, and whenever there seemed anything like a
hitch, either in the papers or my statement, he would go back
and take up the thread and follow it patiently out to an intel-
ligent and satisfactory result. Then he made a list of the
contractors' names. Finally he said:

     "`Mr. Street, this is all perfectly plain. These contracts
are strictly and legally drawn, and are duly signed and certi-
fied. These men manifestly entered into them with their eyes
open. I see no fault or flaw anywhere.'

     "Then Mr. Young turned to a man waiting at the other

     "They were there, to the minute. So was I. Mr. Young
asked them a number of questions, and their answers made
my statement good. Then he said to them:

     "`You signed these contracts and assumed these obligations
of your own free will and accord?'

     "`Yes.'

     "`Then carry them out to the letter, if it makes paupers of
you! Go!'

     "And they did go, too! They are strung across the des-
erts now, working like bees. And I never hear a word out
of them. There is a batch of governors, and judges, and other
officials here, shipped from Washington, and they maintain
the semblance of a republican form of government -- but the

     Mr. Street was a fine man, and I believe his story. I
knew him well during several years afterward in San Fran-
cisco.

     Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days,
and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisi-
tion into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual
statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention
of the nation at large once more to the matter. I had the
will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was
feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform
here -- until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched.
My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these

     IT is a luscious country for thrilling evening stories about
assassinations of intractable Gentiles. I cannot easily
conceive of anything more cosy than the night in Salt Lake
which we spent in a Gentile den, smoking pipes and listening
to tales of how Burton galloped in among the pleading and
defenceless "Morisites" and shot them down, men and
women, like so many dogs. And how Bill Hickman, a De-
storying Angel, shot Drown and Arnold dead for bringing suit
against him for a debt. And how Porter Rockwell did this
and that dreadful thing. And how heedless people often come
to Utah and make remarks about Brigham, or polygamy, or
some other sacred matter, and the very next morning at day-
light such parties are sure to be found lying up some back
alley, contentedly waiting for the hearse.

     And the next most interesting thing is to sit and listen to
these Gentiles talk about polygamy; and how some portly
old frog of an elder, or a bishop, marries a girl -- likes her,
marries her sister -- likes her, marries another sister -- likes her,
takes another -- likes her, marries her mother -- likes her, mar-
ries her father, grandfather, great grandfather, and then comes
back hungry and asks for more. And how the pert young
thing of eleven will chance to be the favorite wife and her
own venerable grandmother have to rank away down toward
D 4 in their mutual husband's esteem, and have to sleep in
the kitchen, as like as not. And how this dreadful sort of
thing, this hiving together in one foul nest of mother and

     According to these Gentile friends of ours, Brigham
Young's harem contains twenty or thirty wives. They said
that some of them had grown old and gone out of active ser-
vice, but were comfortably housed and cared for in the henery
-- or the Lion House, as it is strangely named. Along with
each wife were her children -- fifty altogether. The house was
perfectly quiet and orderly, when the children were still.
They all took their meals in one room, and a happy and home-
like sight it was pronounced to be. None of our party got an

     "I thought I would know the little cub again but I
don't." Mr. Johnson said further, that Mr. Young observed

     "That is a specimen," said Mr. Young. "You see how it
is. You see what a life I lead. A man can't be wise all the
time. In a heedless moment I gave my darling No. 6 -- excuse
my calling her thus, as her other name has escaped me for the
moment -- a breast-pin. It was only worth twenty-five dollars
-- that is, apparently that was its whole cost -- but its ultimate
cost was inevitably bound to be a good deal more. You your-
self have seen it climb up to six hundred and fifty dollars --
and alas, even that is not the end! For I have wives all over

     Some instinct or other
made me set this John-
son down as being unre-
liable. And yet he was
a very entertaining per-
son, and I doubt if some
of the information he
gave us could have been
acquired from any other
source. He was a pleas-
ant contrast to those reticent Mormons.

     ALL men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except
the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble
to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book
is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so
"slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It
is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book,
the act was a miracle -- keeping awake while he did it was, at
any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it
from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of cop-
per, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-
the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a mira-
cle, for the same reason.

     The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary
history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by
a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author
labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned
sound and structure of our King James's translation of the
Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel -- half modern glib-
ness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is
awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque
by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too
modern -- which was about every sentence or two -- he ladled in
a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came
to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. "And it

     The title-page reads as follows:

     The Book of Mormon: an account written by the Hand of Mor-
mon, upon Plates taken from the Plates of Nephi.

     Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi,
and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of
the House of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile; written by way of com-
mandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written
and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed;
to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof;
sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in
due time by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of
God. An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also; which is a
record of the people of Jared; who were scattered at the time the Lord
confounded the language of the people when they were building a tower to
get to Heaven.

     "Hid up" is good. And so is "wherefore" -- though why
"wherefore"? Any other word would have answered as well
-- though in truth it would not have sounded so Seriptural.

     Next comes

     Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom
this work shall come, that we, through the grace of God the Father, and
our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which
is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their breth-
ren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which
hath been spoken; and we also know that they have been translated by the
gift and power of God, for His voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore
we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we
have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been
shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with
words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he
brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and
the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the
Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that
these things are true; and it is marvellous in our eyes; nevertheless the
voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; where-
fore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of

---

-129-

these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid
our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the
judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with Him eternally in the heavens.
And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
which is one God. Amen.

Oliver Cowdery,

David Whitmer,

Martin Harris.

     Some people have to have a world of evidence before they
can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing any-
thing; but for me, when a man tells me that he has "seen the
engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but
an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and
probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to
conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before
or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or
his nationality either.

     Next is this:

     Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom
this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of this work,
has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the
appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has trans-
lated, we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings
thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious
workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said
Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a
surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken.
And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which
we have seen; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.

     Christian Whitmer,

     Jacob Whitmer,

     Peter Whitmer, Jr.,

     John Whitmer,

     Hiram Page,

     Joseph Smith, Sr.,

     Hyrum Smith,

     Samuel H. Smith.

     And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight
men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell
me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen

     The Mormon Bible consists of fifteen "books" -- being the
books of Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Zeniff, Alma,
Helaman, Ether, Moroni, two "books" of Mormon, and three
of Nephi.

     In the first book of Nephi is a plagiarism of the Old Tes-
tament, which gives an account of the exodus from Jerusalem
of the "children of Lehi"; and it goes on to tell of their
wanderings in the wilderness, during eight years, and their
supernatural protection by one of their number, a party by the
name of Nephi. They finally reached the land of " Bounti-
ful," and camped by the sea. After they had remained there
"for the space of many days" -- which is more Scriptural than
definite -- Nephi was commanded from on high to build a ship
wherein to "carry the people across the waters." He traves-
tied Noah's ark -- but he obeyed orders in the matter of the
plan. He finished the ship in a single day, while his breth-
ren stood by and made fun of it -- and of him, too -- "saying,
our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship."
They did not wait for the timbers to dry, but the whole tribe
or nation sailed the next day. Then a bit of genuine nature
cropped out, and is revealed by outspoken Nephi with Script-
ural frankness -- they all got on a spree! They, "and also
their wives, began to make themselves merry, insomuch that
they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much
rudeness; yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness."

     Nephi tried to stop these scandalous proceedings; but they
tied him neck and heels, and went on with their lark. But
observe how Nephi the prophet circumvented them by the aid
of the invisible powers:

     And it came to pass that after they had bound me, insomuch that I could
not move, the compass, which had been prepared of the Lord, did cease to
work; wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, inso-
much that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and

---

-131-

THE MIRACULOUS COMPASS.

504EAF. Page 131. In-line image of a group of people in ancient clothing, with long hair looking at a compass. They are on the deck of a ship.
we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they
began to be frightened exceedingly, lest they should be drowned in the sea;
nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day, which we had
been driven back, the tempest began to be exceeding sore.

     And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the
depths of the sea.

     Then they untied him.

     And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behold, I took the compass,
and it did work whither I desired it. And it came to pass that I prayed
unto the Lord; and after I had prayed, the winds did cease, and the storm
did cease, and there was a great calm.

     Equipped with their compass, these ancients appear to have
had the advantage of Noah.

     Their voyage was toward a "promised land" -- the only
name they give it. They reached it in safety.

     Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon religion, and
was added by Brigham Young after Joseph Smith's death.
Before that, it was regarded as an "abomination." This verse
from the Mormon Bible occurs in Chapter II. of the book of
Jacob:

     For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in iniquity;
they understand not the Scriptures; for they seek to excuse themselves in
committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concern-
ing David, and Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had
many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith
the Lord; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out
of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up
unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Where-
fore, I the Lord God, will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them
of old.

     However, the project failed -- or at least the modern Mor-
mon end of it -- for Brigham "suffers" it. This verse is from
the same chapter:

     Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate, because of their
filthiness and the cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more
righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the
Lord, which was given unto our fathers, that they should have, save it were
one wife; and concubines they should have none.

     The following verse (from Chapter IX. of the Book of
Nephi) appears to contain information not familiar to every-
body:

     And now it came to pass that when Jesus had ascended into heaven, the
multitude did disperse, and every man did take his wife and his children,
and did return to his own home.

     And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude was gath-
ered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom he had raised from the
dead, whose name was Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas,
and also Mathoni, and Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumen-
onhi, and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah;
now these were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen.

     In order that the reader may observe how much more
grandeur and picturesqueness (as seen by these Mormon twelve)
accompanied one of the tenderest episodes in the life of our
Saviour than other eyes seem to have been aware of, I quote
the following from the same "book" -- Nephi:

     And it came to pass that Jesus spake unto them, and bade them arise.
And they arose from the earth, and He said unto them, Blessed are ye be-
cause of your faith. And now behold, My joy is full. And when He had
said these words, He wept, and the multitude bear record of it, and He took
their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the
Father for them. And when He had done this He wept again, and He spake
unto the multitude, and saith unto them, Behold your little ones. And as
they looked to behold, they cast their eyes toward heaven, and they saw
the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were,
in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones
about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister
unto them, and the multitude did see and hear and bear record; and they
know that their record is true, for they all of them did see and hear, every
man for himself; and they were in number about two thousand and five
hundred souls; and they did consist of men, women, and children.

     And what else would they be likely to consist of?

     The Book of Ether is an incomprehensible medley of " his-
tory," much of it relating to battles and sieges among peoples
whom the reader has possibly never heard of; and who inhabited
a country which is not set down in the geography. There was
a King with the remarkable name of Coriantumr, and he
warred with Shared, and Lib, and Shiz, and others, in the
"plains of Heshlon"; and the "valley of Gilgal"; and the
"wilderness of Akish"; and the "land of Moran"; and the
"plains of Agosh"; and "Ogath," and "Ramah," and the
"land of Corihor," and the "hill Comnor," by "the waters
of Ripliancum," etc., etc., etc. "And it came to pass," after
a deal of fighting, that Coriantumr, upon making calculation
of his losses, found that "there had been slain two millions of
mighty men, and also their wives and their children" -- say
5,000,000 or 6,000,000 in all -- "and he began to sorrow in his
heart." Unquestionably it was time. So he wrote to Shiz,
asking a cessation of hostilities, and offering to give up his

     7. And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people, upon
all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether. And it
came to pass that Ether did behold all the doings of the people; and he be-
held that the people who were for Coriantumr, were gathered together to
the army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz, were gathered
together to the army of Shiz; wherefore they were for the space of four
years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon
the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it
was possible that they could receive. And it came to pass that when they
were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with
their wives and their children; both men, women, and children being armed
with weapons of war, having shields, and breast-plates, and head-plates, and
being clothed after the manner of war, they did march forth one against
another, to battle; and they fought all that day, and conquered not. And it
came to pass that when it was night they were weary, and retired to their
camps; and after they had retired to their camps, they took up a howling
and a lamentation for the loss of the slain of their people; and so great
were their cries, their howlings and lamentations, that it did rend the air
exceedingly. And it came to pass that on the morrow they did go again to
battle, and great and terrible was that day; nevertheless they conquered not,
and when the night came again, they did rend the air with their cries, and
their howlings, and their mournings, for the loss of the slain of their
people.

     8. And it came to pass that Coriantumr wrote again an epistle unto Shiz,
desiring that he would not come again to battle, but that he would take the
kingdom, and spare the lives of the people. But behold, the Spirit of the
Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the
hearts of the people, for they were given up unto the hardness of their
hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed;
wherefore they went again to battle. And it came to pass that they fought
all that day, and when the night came they slept upon their swords; and on
the morrow they fought even until the night came; and when the night
came they were drunken with anger, even as a man who is drunken with

---

-135-

wine; and they slept again upon their swords; and on the morrow they
fought again; and when the night came they had all fallen by the sword
save it were fifty and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty and nine
of the people of Shiz. And it came to pass that they slept upon their
swords that night, and on the morrow they fought again, and they contended
in their mights with their swords, and with their shields, all that day; and
when the night came there were thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and
twenty and seven of the people of Coriantumr.

     9. And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared for death on
the morrow. And they were large and mighty men, as to the strength of
men. And it came to pass that they fought for the space of three hours,
and they fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that when
the men of Coriantumr had received sufficient strength, that they could
walk, they were about to flee for their lives, but behold, Shiz arose,
and also his men, and he swore in his wrath that he would slay Coriantumr,
or he would perish by the sword: wherefore he did pursue them, and on
the morrow he did overtake them; and they fought again with the sword.
And it came to pass that when they had all fallen by the sword, save it
were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with loss of blood.
And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that
he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass that
after he had smote off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon his hands
and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died. And it came
to pass that Coriantumr fell to the earth, and became as if he had no
life. And the Lord spake unto Ether, and said unto him, go forth. And he
went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled;
and he finished his record; and the hundredth part I have not written.

     It seems a pity he did not finish, for after all his dreary
former chapters of commonplace, he stopped just as he was in
danger of becoming interesting.

     The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read,
but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of
morals is unobjectionable -- it is "smouched"* from the New
Testament and no credit given.

     AT the end of our two days' sojourn, we left Great Salt
Lake City hearty and well fed and happy -- physically
superb but not so very much wiser, as regards the "Mormon
question," than we were when we arrived, perhaps. We had
a deal more "information" than we had before, of course, but
we did not know what portion of it was reliable and what was
not -- for it all came from acquaintances of a day -- strangers,
strictly speaking. We were told, for instance, that the dreadful
"Mountain Meadows Massacre" was the work of the Indians
entirely, and that the Gentiles had meanly tried to fasten it
upon the Mormons; we were told, likewise, that the Indians
were to blame, partly, and partly the Mormons; and we were
told, likewise, and just as positively, that the Mormons were
almost if not wholly and completely responsible for that most
treacherous and pitiless butchery. We got the story in all
these different shapes, but it was not till several years after-
ward that Mrs. Waite's book, "The Mormon Prophet," came
out with Judge Cradlebaugh's trial of the accused parties in
it and revealed the truth that the latter version was the cor-
rect one and that the Mormons were the assassins. All our
"information" had three sides to it, and so I gave up the idea
that I could settle the "Mormon question" in two days. Still
I have seen newspaper correspondents do it in one.

     I left Great Salt Lake a good deal confused as to what
state of things existed there -- and sometimes even questioning
in my own mind whether a state of things existed there at all

     What a roar of
vulgar laughter
there was! I de-
stroyed the mongrel
reptile on the spot,
but I smiled and
smiled all the time
I was detaching his
scalp, for the re-
mark he made was
good for an " In-
jun."

     Yes, we had
learned in Salt Lake
to be charged great
prices without letting the inward shudder appear on the sur-
face -- for even already we had overheard and noted the tenor
of conversations among drivers, conductors, and hostlers, and
finally among citizens of Salt Lake, until we were well aware
that these superior beings despised "emigrants." We per-
mitted no tell-tale shudders and winces in our countenances,
for we wanted to seem pioneers, or Mormons, half-breeds,
teamsters, stage-drivers, Mountain Meadow assassins -- anything
in the world that the plains and Utah respected and admired --
but we were wretchedly ashamed of being "emigrants," and
sorry enough that we had white shirts and could not swear in
the presence of ladies without looking the other way.

     And many a time in Nevada, afterwards, we had occasion

     AT eight in the morning we reached the remnant and ruin
of what had been the important military station of
"Camp Floyd," some forty-five or fifty miles from Salt Lake
City. At four P.M. we had doubled our distance and were
ninety or a hundred miles from Salt Lake. And now we
entered upon one of that species of deserts whose concentrated
hideousness shames the diffused and diluted horrors of Sahara
-- an "alkali" desert. For sixty-eight miles there was but
one break in it. I do not remember that this was really a
break; indeed it seems to me that it was nothing but a water-
ing depot in the midst of the stretch of sixty-eight miles. If
my memory serves me, there was no well or spring at this
place, but the water was hauled there by mule and ox teams
from the further side of the desert. There was a stage station
there. It was forty-five miles from the beginning of the
desert, and twenty-three from the end of it.

     We plowed and dragged and groped along, the whole live-
long night, and at the end of this uncomfortable twelve hours
we finished the forty-five-mile part of the desert and got to
the stage station where the imported water was. The sun
was just rising. It was easy enough to cross a desert in the
night while we were asleep; and it was pleasant to reflect, in
the morning, that we in actual person had encountered an
absolute desert and could always speak knowingly of deserts
in presence of the ignorant thenceforward. And it was pleas-

     This enthusiasm, this stern thirst for adventure, wilted
under the sultry August sun and did not last above one hour.
One poor little hour -- and then we were ashamed that we
had "gushed" so. The poetry was all in the anticipation --
there is none in the reality. Imagine a vast, waveless ocean
stricken dead and turned to ashes; imagine this solemn waste
tufted with ash-dusted sage-bushes; imagine the lifeless silence
and solitude that belong to such a place; imagine a coach,
creeping like a bug through the midst of this shoreless level,
and sending up tumbled volumes of dust as if it were a bug
that went by steam; imagine this aching monotony of toiling
and plowing kept up hour after hour, and the shore still as far
away as ever, apparently; imagine team, driver, coach and
passengers so deeply coated with ashes that they are all one
colorless color; imagine ash-drifts roosting above moustaches
and eyebrows like snow accumulations on boughs and bushes.
This is the reality of it.

     The sun beats down with dead, blistering, relentless
malignity; the perspiration is welling from every pore in man
and beast, but scarcely a sign of it finds its way to the surface
-- it is absorbed before it gets there; there is not the faintest
breath of air stirring; there is not a merciful shred of cloud
in all the brilliant firmament; there is not a living creature
visible in any direction whither one searches the blank level
that stretches its monotonous miles on every hand; there is
not a sound -- not a sigh -- not a whisper -- not a buzz, or a whir
of wings, or distant pipe of bird -- not even a sob from the
lost souls that doubtless people that dead air. And so the
occasional sneezing of the resting mules, and the champing of

     The mules, under violent swearing, coaxing and whip-
cracking, would make at stated intervals a "spurt," and drag
the coach a hundred or may be two hundred yards, stirring
up a billowy cloud of dust that rolled back, enveloping the
vehicle to the wheel-tops or higher, and making it seem afloat
in a fog. Then a rest followed, with the usual sneezing and
bit-champing. Then another "spurt" of a hundred yards and
another rest at the end of it. All day long we kept this up,
without water for the mules and without ever changing the
team. At least we kept it up ten hours, which, I take it, is a
day, and a pretty honest one, in an alkali desert. It was from
four in the morning till two in the afternoon. And it was so
hot! and so close! and our water canteens went dry in the
middle of the day and we got so thirsty! It was so stupid
and tiresome and dull! and the tedious hours did lag and
drag and limp along with such a cruel deliberation! It was
so trying to give one's watch a good long undisturbed spell
and then take it out and find that it had been fooling away
the time and not trying to get ahead any! The alkali dust
cut through our lips, it persecuted our eyes, it ate through the
delicate membranes and made our noses bleed and kept them
bleeding -- and truly and seriously the romance all faded far
away and disappeared, and left the desert trip nothing but a
harsh reality -- a thirsty, sweltering, longing, hateful reality!

     Two miles and a quarter an hour for ten hours -- that was
what we accomplished. It was hard to bring the comprehen-
sion away down to such a snail-pace as that, when we had been
used to making eight and ten miles an hour. When we
reached the station on the farther verge of the desert, we were
glad, for the first time, that the dictionary was along, because
we never could have found language to tell how glad we were,
in any sort of dictionary but an unabridged one with pictures
in it. But there could not have been found in a whole library

     ON the morning of the sixteenth day out from St. Joseph
we arrived at the entrance of Rocky Canyon, two hun-
dred and fifty miles from Salt Lake. It was along in this
wild country somewhere, and far from any habitation of white
men, except the stage stations, that we came across the wretch-
edest type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this writing. I
refer to the Goshoot Indians. From what we could see and
all we could learn, they are very considerably inferior to even
the despised Digger Indians of California; inferior to all races
of savages on our continent; inferior to even the Terra del
Fuegans; inferior to the Hottentots, and actually inferior in
some respects to the Kytches of Africa. Indeed, I have been
obliged to look the bulky volumes of Wood's "Uncivilized
Races of Men" clear through in order to find a savage tribe
degraded enough to take rank with the Goshoots. I find but
one people fairly open to that shameful verdict. It is the Bos-
jesmans (Bushmen) of South Africa. Such of the Goshoots
as we saw, along the road and hanging about the stations,
were small, lean, "scrawny" creatures; in complexion a dull
black like the ordinary American negro; their faces and hands
bearing dirt which they had been hoarding and accumulating
for months, years, and even generations, according to the age
of the proprietor; a silent, sneaking, treacherous looking race;
taking note of everything, covertly, like all the other "Noble
Red Men" that we (do not) read about, and betraying no sign in
their countenances; indolent, everlastingly patient and tireless,
like all other Indians; prideless beggars -- for if the beggar in-

     The Bushmen and our Goshoots are manifestly descended
from the self-same gorilla, or kangaroo, or Norway rat, which-
ever animal-Adam the Darwinians trace them to.

     One would as soon expect the rabbits to fight as the

     Let us forget that we have been saying harsh things about
the Overland drivers, now. The disgust which the Goshoots
gave me, a disciple of Cooper and a worshipper of the Red
Man -- even of the scholarly savages in the "Last of the Mo-
hicans" who are fittingly associated with backwoodsmen
who divide each sentence into two equal parts: one part crit-
ically grammatical, refined and choice of language, and the
other part just such an attempt to talk like a hunter or a
mountaineer, as a Broadway clerk might make after eating an
edition of Emerson Bennett's works and studying frontier
life at the Bowery Theatre a couple of weeks -- I say that the
nausea which the Goshoots gave me, an Indian worshipper,
set me to examining authorities, to see if perchance I had been
over-estimating the Red Man while viewing him through the
mellow moonshine of romance. The revelations that came
were disenchanting. It was curious to see how quickly the
paint and tinsel fell away from him and left him treacherous,
filthy and repulsive -- and how quickly the evidences accumu-
lated that wherever one finds an Indian tribe he has only
found Goshoots more or less modified by circumstances and
surroundings -- but Goshoots, after all. They deserve pity,
poor creatures; and they can have mine -- at this distance.
Nearer by, they never get anybody's.

     There is an impression abroad that the Baltimore and
Washington Railroad Company and many of its employes are
Goshoots; but it is an error. There is only a plausible resem-
blance, which, while it is apt enough to mislead the ignorant,
cannot deceive parties who have contemplated both tribes.
But seriously, it was not only poor wit, but very wrong to
start the report referred to above; for however innocent the
motive may have been, the necessary effect was to injure the
reputation of a class who have a hard enough time of it in the
pitiless deserts of the Rocky Mountains, Heaven knows! If
we cannot find it in our hearts to give those poor naked crea-
tures our Christian sympathy and compassion, in God's name
let us at least not throw mud at them.

     ON the seventeenth day we passed the highest mountain
peaks we had yet seen, and although the day was very
warm the night that followed upon its heels was wintry cold
and blankets were next to useless.

     On the eighteenth day we encountered the eastward-bound
telegraph-constructors at Reese River station and sent a mes-
sage to his Excellency Gov. Nye at Carson City (distant one
hundred and fifty-six miles).

     On the nineteenth day we crossed the Great American
Desert -- forty memorable miles of bottomless sand, into which
the coach wheels sunk from six inches to a foot. We worked
our passage most of the way across. That is to say, we got
out and walked. It was a dreary pull and a long and thirsty
one, for we had no water. From one extremity of this desert
to the other, the road was white with the bones of oxen and
horses. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that we
could have walked the forty miles and set our feet on a bone
at every step! The desert was one prodigious graveyard.
And the log-chains, wagon tyres, and rotting wrecks of vehi-
cles were almost as thick as the bones. I think we saw log-
chains enough rusting there in the desert, to reach across any
State in the Union. Do not these relics suggest something of
an idea of the fearful suffering and privation the early emi-
grants to California endured?

     At the border of the Desert lies Carson Lake, or The
"Sink" of the Carson, a shallow, melancholy sheet of water

     There are several rivers in Nevada, and they all have this
mysterious fate. They end in various lakes or "sinks," and
that is the last of them. Carson Lake, Humboldt Lake,
Walker Lake, Mono Lake, are all great sheets of water with-
out any visible outlet. Water is always flowing into them;
none is ever seen
to flow out of them,
and yet they re-
main always level
full, neither reced-
ing nor overflowing.
What they do with
their surplus is
only known to the
Creator.

     On the western
verge of the Desert
we halted a moment
at Ragtown. It con-
sisted of one log-
house and is not set
down on the map.

     This reminds me
of a circumstance. Just after we left Julesburg, on the Platte,
I was sitting with the driver, and he said:

     "I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you
would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road
once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver,
Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placer-
ville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach
bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the
buttons all off of Horace's coat, and finally shot his head clean

     A day or two after that we picked up a Denver man at
the cross roads, and he told us a good deal about the country
and the Gregory Diggings. He seemed a very entertaining
person and a man well posted in the affairs of Colorado. By
and by he remarked:

     "I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would
like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once.
When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank
Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville
and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach
bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the
buttons all off of Horace's coat, and finally shot his head clean
through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank
Monk and begged him to go easier -- said he warn't in as much
of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said,
`Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get you there on time!' --
and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him!"

     At Fort Bridger, some days after this, we took on board a
cavalry sergeant, a very proper and soldierly person indeed.
From no other man during the whole journey, did we gather
such a store of concise and well-arranged military information.
It was surprising to find in the desolate wilds of our country
a man so thoroughly acquainted with everything useful to
know in his line of life, and yet of such inferior rank and un-
pretentious bearing. For as much as three hours we listened
to him with unabated interest. Finally he got upon the sub-
ject of trans-continental travel, and presently said:

     "I can tell you a very laughable thing indeed, if you would
like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once.
When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank
Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and

     When we were eight hours out from Salt Lake City a
Mormon preacher got in with us at a way station -- a gentle,
soft-spoken, kindly man, and one whom any stranger would
warm to at first sight. I can never forget the pathos that was
in his voice as he told, in simple language, the story of his
people's wanderings and unpitied sufferings. No pulpit elo-
quence was ever so moving and so beautiful as this outcast's
picture of the first Mormon pilgrimage across the plains,
struggling sorrowfully onward to the land of its banishment
and marking its desolate way with graves and watering it with
tears. His words so wrought upon us that it was a relief to
us all when the conversation drifted into a more cheerful chan-
nel and the natural features of the curious country we were in
came under treatment. One matter after another was pleas-
antly discussed, and at length the stranger said:

     "I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would
like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once.
When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank
Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture in Placerville,
and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach
bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the
buttons all off of Horace's coat, and finally shot his head clean
through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank
Monk and begged him to go easier -- said he warn't in as much
of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said,
`Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get you there on time!' --
and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him!"

     Ten miles out of Ragtown we found a poor wanderer who
had lain down to die. He had walked as long as he could,
but his limbs had failed him at last. Hunger and fatigue
had conquered him. It would have been inhuman to leave
him there. We paid his fare to Carson and lifted him
into the coach. It was some little time before he showed any
very decided signs of life; but by dint of chafing him and
pouring brandy between his lips we finally brought him to a
languid consciousness. Then we fed him a little, and by and
by he seemed to comprehend the situation and a grateful
light softened his eye. We made his mail-sack bed as com-
fortable as possible, and constructed a pillow for him with our
coats. He seemed very thankful. Then he looked up in our
faces, and said in a feeble voice that had a tremble of honest
emotion in it:

     "Gentlemen, I know not who you are, but you have saved
my life; and although I can never be able to repay you for it, I
feel that I can
at least make
one hour of your
long journey
lighter. I take
it you are strang-
ers to this great
thoroughfare,
but I am entire-
ly familiar with
it. In this con-
nection I can
tell you a most
laughable thing
indeed, if you
would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley -- "

     I said, impressively:

     "Suffering stranger, proceed at your peril. You see in me
the melancholy wreck of a once stalwart and mangnificent man-
hood. What has brought me to this? That thing which you

     We were saved. But not so the invalid. In trying to
retain the anecdote in his system he strained himself and
died in our arms.

     I am aware, now, that I ought not to have asked of the
sturdiest citizen of all that region, what I asked of that mere
shadow of a man; for, after seven years' residence on the Pa-
cific coast, I know that no passenger or driver on the Overland
ever corked that anecdote in, when a stranger was by, and sur-
vived. Within a period of six years I crossed and recrossed the
Sierras between Nevada and California thirteen times by stage
and listened to that deathless incident four hundred and eighty-
one or eighty-two times. I have the list somewhere. Drivers
always told it, conductors told it, landlords told it, chance
passengers told it, the very Chinamen and vagrant Indians
recounted it. I have had the same driver tell it to me two
or three times in the same afternoon. It has come to me in
all the multitude of tongues that Babel bequeathed to earth,
and flavored with whiskey, brandy, beer, cologne, sozodont,
tobacco, garlic, onions, grasshoppers -- everything that has a fra-
grance to it through all the long list of things that are gorged
or guzzled by the sons of men. I never have smelt any anec-
dote as often as I have smelt that one; never have smelt any
anecdote that smelt so variegated as that one. And you never
could learn to know it by its smell, because every time you
thought you had learned the smell of it, it would turn up with
a different smell. Bayard Taylor has written about this hoary
anecdote, Richardson has published it; so have Jones, Smith,
Johnson, Ross Browne, and every other correspondence-indit-
ing being that ever set his foot upon the great overland road
anywhere between Julesburg and San Francisco; and I have
heard that it is in the Talmud. I have seen it in print in
nine different foreign languages; I have been told that it is

     Stage-coaching on the Overland is no more, and stage
drivers are a race defunct. I wonder if they bequeathed that
bald-headed anecdote to their successors, the railroad brake-
men and conductors, and if these latter still persecute the
helpless passenger with it until he concludes, as did many a
tourist of other days, that the real grandeurs of the Pacific coast
are not Yo Semite and the Big Trees, but Hank Monk and
his adventure with Horace Greeley.*

     WE were approaching the end of our long journey. It
was the morning of the twentieth day. At noon we
would reach Carson City, the capital of Nevada Territory.
We were not glad, but sorry. It had been a fine pleasure
trip; we had fed fat on wonders every day; we were now
well accustomed to stage life, and very fond of it; so the idea
of coming to a stand-still and settling down to a humdrum
existence in a village was not agreeable, but on the contrary
depressing.

     Visibly our new home was a desert, walled in by barren,
snow-clad mountains. There was not a tree in sight. There
was no vegetation but the endless sage-brush and greasewood.
All nature was gray with it. We were plowing through
great deeps of powdery alkali dust that rose in thick clouds
and floated across the plain like smoke from a burning house.
We were coated with it like millers; so were the coach, the
mules, the mail-bags, the driver -- we and the sage-brush and
the other scenery were all one monotonous color. Long trains
of freight wagons in the distance enveloped in ascending
masses of dust suggested pictures of prairies on fire. These
teams and their masters were the only life we saw. Other-
wise we moved in the midst of solitude, silence and desolation.
Every twenty steps we passed the skeleton of some dead
beast of burthen, with its dust-coated skin stretched tightly
over its empty ribs. Frequently a solemn raven sat upon the

     By and by Carson City was pointed out to us. It nestled
in the edge of a great plain and was a sufficient number of
miles away to look like an assemblage
of mere white spots in the shadow of
a grim range of mountains overlook-
ing it, whose summits seemed lifted
clear out of companionship and con-
sciousness of earthly things.

     We arrived, disembarked, and the
stage went on. It was a "wooden"
town; its population two thousand
souls. The main street consisted of
four or five blocks of little white frame stores which were too
high to sit down on, but not too high for various other purposes;
in fact, hardly high enough. They were packed close together,
side by side, as if room were scarce in that mighty plain. The
sidewalk was of boards that were more or less loose and
inclined to rattle when walked upon. In the middle of the
town, opposite the stores, was the "plaza" which is native to
all towns beyond the Rocky Mountains -- a large, unfenced,
level vacancy, with a liberty pole in it, and very useful as a
place for public auctions, horse trades, and mass meetings, and
likewise for teamsters to camp in. Two other sides of the
plaza were faced by stores, offices and stables. The rest of
Carson City was pretty scattering.

     We were introduced to several citizens, at the stage-office
and on the way up to the Governor's from the hotel -- among
others, to a Mr. Harris, who was on horseback; he began to
say something, but interrupted himself with the remark:

     "I'll have to get you to excuse me a minute; yonder is the
witness that swore I helped to rob the California coach -- a
piece of impertinent intermeddling, sir, for I am not even
acquainted with the man."

     Then he rode over and began to rebuke the stranger with
a six-shooter, and the stranger began to explain with another.

     This was all we saw that day, for it was two o'clock, now,
and according to custom the daily "Washoe Zephyr" set in;
a soaring dust-drift about the size of the United States set up
edgewise came with it, and the capital of Nevada Territory
disappeared from view. Still, there were sights to be seen
which were not wholly uninteresting to new comers; for the
vast dust cloud was thickly freckled with things strange to the
upper air -- things living and dead, that flitted hither and
thither, going and coming, appearing and disappearing among

     It was something to see that much. I could have seen
more, if I could have kept the dust out of my eyes.

     But seriously a Washoe wind is by no means a trifling
matter. It blows flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs oc-
casionally, rolls up tin ones like sheet music, now and then
blows a stage coach over and spills the passengers; and tra-
dition says the reason there are so many bald people there, is,
that the wind blows the hair off their heads while they are
looking skyward after their hats. Carson streets seldom look
inactive on Summer afternoons, because there are so many
citizens skipping around their escaping hats, like chamber-
maids trying to head off a spider.

     The "Washoe Zephyr" (Washoe is a pet nickname for
Nevada) is a peculiarly Scriptural wind, in that no man
knoweth "whence it cometh." That is to say, where it origi-
nates. It comes right over the mountains from the West, but
when one crosses the ridge he does not find any of it on the
other side! It probably is manufactured on the mountain-top
for the occasion, and starts from there. It is a pretty regular
wind, in the summer time. Its office hours are from two in
the afternoon till two the next morning; and anybody ventur-
ing abroad during those twelve hours needs to allow for the
wind or he will bring up a mile or two to leeward of the
point he is aiming at. And yet the first complaint a Washoe
visitor to San Francisco makes, is that the sea winds blow so,
there! There is a good deal of human nature in that.

     We found the state palace of the Governor of Nevada
Territory to consist of a white frame one-story house with two
small rooms in it and a stanchion supported shed in front -- for

     IT was the end of August, and the skies were cloudless and
the weather superb. In two or three weeks I had grown
wonderfully fascinated with the curious new country, and
concluded to put off my return to "the States" awhile. I
had grown well accustomed to wearing a damaged slouch hat,
blue woolen shirt, and pants crammed into boot-tops, and
gloried in the absence of coat, vest and braces. I felt rowdy-
ish and "bully," (as the historian Josephus phrases it, in his
fine chapter upon the destruction of the Temple). It seemed
to me that nothing could be so fine and so romantic. I had
become an officer of the government, but that was for mere
sublimity. The office was an unique sinecure. I had nothing
to do and no salary. I was private Secretary to his majesty
the Secretary and there was not yet writing enough for two
of us. So Johnny K -- and I devoted our time to amuse-
ment. He was the young son of an Ohio nabob and was out
there for recreation. He got it. We had heard a world of
talk about the marvellous beauty of Lake Tahoe, and finally
curiosity drove us thither to see it. Three or four members
of the Brigade had been there and located some timber lands
on its shores and stored up a quantity of provisions in their
camp. We strapped a couple of blankets on our shoulders
and took an axe apiece and started -- for we intended to take
up a wood ranch or so ourselves and become wealthy. We
were on foot. The reader will find it advantageous to go
horseback. We were told that the distance was eleven miles.

     We found the small skiff belonging to the Brigade boys,
and without loss of time
set out across a deep bend
of the lake toward the land-
marks that signified the lo-
cality of the camp. I got
Johnny to row -- not be-
cause I mind exertion my-
self, but because it makes
me sick to ride backwards
when I am at work. But
I steered. A three-mile pull brought us to
the camp just as the night fell, and we
stepped ashore very tired and wolfishly hun-
gry. In a "cache" among the rocks we found
the provisions and the cooking utensils, and then, all fatigued
as I was, I sat down on a boulder and superintended while
Johnny gathered wood and cooked supper. Many a man who
had gone through what I had, would have wanted to rest.

     It was a delicious supper -- hot bread, fried bacon, and
black coffee. It was a delicious solitude we were in, too.
Three miles away was a saw-mill and some workmen, but
there were not fifteen other human beings throughout the
wide circumference of the lake. As the darkness closed down
and the stars came out and spangled the great mirror with
jewels, we smoked meditatively in the solemn hush and forgot
our troubles and our pains. In due time we spread our
blankets in the warm sand between two large boulders and
soon feel asleep, careless of the procession of ants that passed
in through rents in our clothing and explored our persons.
Nothing could disturb the sleep that fettered us, for it had
been fairly earned, and if our consciences had any sins on
them they had to adjourn court for that night, any way. The
wind rose just as we were losing consciousness, and we were
lulled to sleep by the beating of the surf upon the shore.

     It is always very cold on that lake shore in the night, but
we had plenty of blankets and were warm enough. We never
moved a muscle all night, but waked at
early dawn in the original positions, and
got up at once, thoroughly refreshed,
free from soreness, and brim full of
friskiness. There is no end of whole-
some medicine in such an experience.
That morning we could have whipped
ten such people as we were the day
before -- sick ones at any rate. But the
world is slow, and people will go to
"water cures" and "movement cures"
and to foreign lands for health. Three
months of camp life on Lake Tahoe
would restore an Egyptian mummy to
his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator.
I do not mean the oldest and driest mummies, of course, but the
fresher ones. The air up there in the clouds is very pure and
fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be? -- it is
the same the angels breathe. I think that hardly any amount