ROUGHING IT

 by Mark Twain

 1880

 Part 5. 

CHAPTER XLI. 

Captain Nye was very ill indeed, with spasmodic rheumatism. But the oldgentleman was himself--which is to say, he was kind-hearted and agreeablewhen comfortable, but a singularly violent wild-cat when things did notgo well. He would be smiling along pleasantly enough, when a suddenspasm of his disease would take him and he would go out of his smile intoa perfect fury. He would groan and wail and howl with the anguish, andfill up the odd chinks with the most elaborate profanity that strongconvictions and a fine fancy could contrive. With fair opportunity hecould swear very well and handle his adjectives with considerablejudgment; but when the spasm was on him it was painful to listen to him, he was so awkward. However, I had seen him nurse a sick man himself andput up patiently with the inconveniences of the situation, andconsequently I was willing that he should have full license now that hisown turn had come. He could not disturb me, with all his raving andranting, for my mind had work on hand, and it labored on diligently, night and day, whether my hands were idle or employed. I was alteringand amending the plans for my house, and thinking over the propriety ofhaving the billard-room in the attic, instead of on the same floor withthe dining-room; also, I was trying to decide between green and blue forthe upholstery of the drawing-room, for, although my preference was blueI feared it was a color that would be too easily damaged by dust andsunlight; likewise while I was content to put the coachman in a modestlivery, I was uncertain about a footman--I needed one, and was evenresolved to have one, but wished he could properly appear and perform hisfunctions out of livery, for I somewhat dreaded so much show; and yet, inasmuch as my late grandfather had had a coachman and such things, butno liveries, I felt rather drawn to beat him;--or beat his ghost, at anyrate; I was also systematizing the European trip, and managed to get itall laid out, as to route and length of time to be devoted to it--everything, with one exception--namely, whether to cross the desert fromCairo to Jerusalem per camel, or go by sea to Beirut, and thence downthrough the country per caravan. Meantime I was writing to the friendsat home every day, instructing them concerning all my plans andintentions, and directing them to look up a handsome homestead for mymother and agree upon a price for it against my coming, and alsodirecting them to sell my share of the Tennessee land and tender theproceeds to the widows' and orphans' fund of the typographical union ofwhich I had long been a member in good standing. [This Tennessee landhad been in the possession of the family many years, and promised toconfer high fortune upon us some day; it still promises it, but in a lessviolent way. ]

When I had been nursing the Captain nine days he was somewhat better, but very feeble. During the afternoon we lifted him into a chair andgave him an alcoholic vapor bath, and then set about putting him on thebed again. We had to be exceedingly careful, for the least jar producedpain. Gardiner had his shoulders and I his legs; in an unfortunatemoment I stumbled and the patient fell heavily on the bed in an agony oftorture. I never heard a man swear so in my life. He raved like amaniac, and tried to snatch a revolver from the table--but I got it. He ordered me out of the house, and swore a world of oaths that he wouldkill me wherever he caught me when he got on his feet again. It wassimply a passing fury, and meant nothing. I knew he would forget it inan hour, and maybe be sorry for it, too; but it angered me a little, atthe moment. So much so, indeed, that I determined to go back toEsmeralda. I thought he was able to get along alone, now, since he wason the war path. I took supper, and as soon as the moon rose, began mynine-mile journey, on foot. 

Even millionaires needed no horses, in those days, for a mere nine-milejaunt without baggage. 

As I "raised the hill" overlooking the town, it lacked fifteen minutes oftwelve. I glanced at the hill over beyond the canyon, and in the brightmoonlight saw what appeared to be about half the population of thevillage massed on and around the Wide West croppings. My heart gave anexulting bound, and I said to myself, "They have made a new striketo-night--and struck it richer than ever, no doubt. " I started overthere, but gave it up. I said the "strick" would keep, and I had climbedhill enough for one night. I went on down through the town, and as I waspassing a little German bakery, a woman ran out and begged me to come inand help her. She said her husband had a fit. I went in, and judged shewas right--he appeared to have a hundred of them, compressed into one. Two Germans were there, trying to hold him, and not making much of asuccess of it. I ran up the street half a block or so and routed out asleeping doctor, brought him down half dressed, and we four wrestled withthe maniac, and doctored, drenched and bled him, for more than an hour, and the poor German woman did the crying. He grew quiet, now, and thedoctor and I withdrew and left him to his friends. 

It was a little after one o'clock. As I entered the cabin door, tiredbut jolly, the dingy light of a tallow candle revealed Higbie, sitting bythe pine table gazing stupidly at my note, which he held in his fingers, and looking pale, old, and haggard. I halted, and looked at him. Helooked at me, stolidly. I said:

"Higbie, what--what is it?"

"We're ruined--we didn't do the work--THE BLIND LEAD'S RELOCATED!"

It was enough. I sat down sick, grieved--broken-hearted, indeed. Aminute before, I was rich and brimful of vanity; I was a pauper now, andvery meek. We sat still an hour, busy with thought, busy with vain anduseless self-upbraidings, busy with "Why didn't I do this, and why didn'tI do that, " but neither spoke a word. Then we dropped into mutualexplanations, and the mystery was cleared away. It came out that Higbiehad depended on me, as I had on him, and as both of us had on theforeman. The folly of it! It was the first time that ever staid andsteadfast Higbie had left an important matter to chance or failed to betrue to his full share of a responsibility. 

But he had never seen my note till this moment, and this moment was thefirst time he had been in the cabin since the day he had seen me last. He, also, had left a note for me, on that same fatal afternoon--hadridden up on horseback, and looked through the window, and being in ahurry and not seeing me, had tossed the note into the cabin through abroken pane. Here it was, on the floor, where it had remainedundisturbed for nine days:

 "Don't fail to do the work before the ten days expire. W. Has passed through and given me notice. I am to join him at Mono Lake, and we shall go on from there to-night. He says he will find it this time, sure. CAL. "

"W. " meant Whiteman, of course. That thrice accursed "cement!"

That was the way of it. An old miner, like Higbie, could no morewithstand the fascination of a mysterious mining excitement like this"cement" foolishness, than he could refrain from eating when he wasfamishing. Higbie had been dreaming about the marvelous cement formonths; and now, against his better judgment, he had gone off and "takenthe chances" on my keeping secure a mine worth a million undiscoveredcement veins. They had not been followed this time. His riding out oftown in broad daylight was such a common-place thing to do that it hadnot attracted any attention. He said they prosecuted their search in thefastnesses of the mountains during nine days, without success; they couldnot find the cement. Then a ghastly fear came over him that somethingmight have happened to prevent the doing of the necessary work to holdthe blind lead (though indeed he thought such a thing hardly possible), and forthwith he started home with all speed. He would have reachedEsmeralda in time, but his horse broke down and he had to walk a greatpart of the distance. And so it happened that as he came into Esmeraldaby one road, I entered it by another. His was the superior energy, however, for he went straight to the Wide West, instead of turning asideas I had done--and he arrived there about five or ten minutes too late!The "notice" was already up, the "relocation" of our mine completedbeyond recall, and the crowd rapidly dispersing. He learned some factsbefore he left the ground. The foreman had not been seen about thestreets since the night we had located the mine--a telegram had calledhim to California on a matter of life and death, it was said. At anyrate he had done no work and the watchful eyes of the community weretaking note of the fact. At midnight of this woful tenth day, the ledgewould be "relocatable, " and by eleven o'clock the hill was black with menprepared to do the relocating. That was the crowd I had seen when Ifancied a new "strike" had been made--idiot that I was. 

[We three had the same right to relocate the lead that other people had, provided we were quick enough. ] As midnight was announced, fourteen men, duly armed and ready to back their proceedings, put up their "notice" andproclaimed their ownership of the blind lead, under the new name of the"Johnson. " But A. D. Allen our partner (the foreman) put in a suddenappearance about that time, with a cocked revolver in his hand, and saidhis name must be added to the list, or he would "thin out the Johnsoncompany some. " He was a manly, splendid, determined fellow, and known tobe as good as his word, and therefore a compromise was effected. Theyput in his name for a hundred feet, reserving to themselves the customarytwo hundred feet each. Such was the history of the night's events, asHigbie gathered from a friend on the way home. 

Higbie and I cleared out on a new mining excitement the next morning, glad to get away from the scene of our sufferings, and after a month ortwo of hardship and disappointment, returned to Esmeralda once more. Then we learned that the Wide West and the Johnson companies hadconsolidated; that the stock, thus united, comprised five thousand feet, or shares; that the foreman, apprehending tiresome litigation, andconsidering such a huge concern unwieldy, had sold his hundred feet forninety thousand dollars in gold and gone home to the States to enjoy it. If the stock was worth such a gallant figure, with five thousand sharesin the corporation, it makes me dizzy to think what it would have beenworth with only our original six hundred in it. It was the differencebetween six hundred men owning a house and five thousand owning it. Wewould have been millionaires if we had only worked with pick and spadeone little day on our property and so secured our ownership!

It reads like a wild fancy sketch, but the evidence of many witnesses, and likewise that of the official records of Esmeralda District, iseasily obtainable in proof that it is a true history. I can always haveit to say that I was absolutely and unquestionably worth a milliondollars, once, for ten days. 

A year ago my esteemed and in every way estimable old millionairepartner, Higbie, wrote me from an obscure little mining camp inCalifornia that after nine or ten years of buffetings and hard striving, he was at last in a position where he could command twenty-five hundreddollars, and said he meant to go into the fruit business in a modest way. How such a thought would have insulted him the night we lay in our cabinplanning European trips and brown stone houses on Russian Hill!

CHAPTER XLII. 

What to do next?

It was a momentous question. I had gone out into the world to shift formyself, at the age of thirteen (for my father had endorsed for friends;and although he left us a sumptuous legacy of pride in his fine Virginianstock and its national distinction, I presently found that I could notlive on that alone without occasional bread to wash it down with). I hadgained a livelihood in various vocations, but had not dazzled anybodywith my successes; still the list was before me, and the amplest libertyin the matter of choosing, provided I wanted to work--which I did not, after being so wealthy. I had once been a grocery clerk, for one day, but had consumed so much sugar in that time that I was relieved fromfurther duty by the proprietor; said he wanted me outside, so that hecould have my custom. I had studied law an entire week, and then givenit up because it was so prosy and tiresome. I had engaged briefly in thestudy of blacksmithing, but wasted so much time trying to fix the bellowsso that it would blow itself, that the master turned me adrift indisgrace, and told me I would come to no good. I had been a bookseller'sclerk for awhile, but the customers bothered me so much I could not readwith any comfort, and so the proprietor gave me a furlough and forgot toput a limit to it. I had clerked in a drug store part of a summer, butmy prescriptions were unlucky, and we appeared to sell more stomach pumpsthan soda water. So I had to go. I had made of myself a tolerableprinter, under the impression that I would be another Franklin some day, but somehow had missed the connection thus far. There was no berth openin the Esmeralda Union, and besides I had always been such a slowcompositor that I looked with envy upon the achievements of apprenticesof two years' standing; and when I took a "take, " foremen were in thehabit of suggesting that it would be wanted "some time during the year. "

I was a good average St. Louis and New Orleans pilot and by no meansashamed of my abilities in that line; wages were two hundred and fiftydollars a month and no board to pay, and I did long to stand behind awheel again and never roam any more--but I had been making such an ass ofmyself lately in grandiloquent letters home about my blind lead and myEuropean excursion that I did what many and many a poor disappointedminer had done before; said "It is all over with me now, and I will nevergo back home to be pitied--and snubbed. " I had been a private secretary, a silver miner and a silver mill operative, and amounted to less thannothing in each, and now--

What to do next?

I yielded to Higbie's appeals and consented to try the mining once more. We climbed far up on the mountain side and went to work on a littlerubbishy claim of ours that had a shaft on it eight feet deep. Higbiedescended into it and worked bravely with his pick till he had loosenedup a deal of rock and dirt and then I went down with a long-handledshovel (the most awkward invention yet contrived by man) to throw it out. You must brace the shovel forward with the side of your knee till it isfull, and then, with a skilful toss, throw it backward over your leftshoulder. I made the toss, and landed the mess just on the edge of theshaft and it all came back on my head and down the back of my neck. I never said a word, but climbed out and walked home. I inwardlyresolved that I would starve before I would make a target of myself andshoot rubbish at it with a long-handled shovel. 

I sat down, in the cabin, and gave myself up to solid misery--so tospeak. Now in pleasanter days I had amused myself with writing lettersto the chief paper of the Territory, the Virginia Daily TerritorialEnterprise, and had always been surprised when they appeared in print. My good opinion of the editors had steadily declined; for it seemed to methat they might have found something better to fill up with than myliterature. I had found a letter in the post office as I came home fromthe hill side, and finally I opened it. Eureka! [I never did know whatEureka meant, but it seems to be as proper a word to heave in as any whenno other that sounds pretty offers. ] It was a deliberate offer to me ofTwenty-Five Dollars a week to come up to Virginia and be city editor ofthe Enterprise. 

I would have challenged the publisher in the "blind lead" days--I wantedto fall down and worship him, now. Twenty-Five Dollars a week--it lookedlike bloated luxury--a fortune a sinful and lavish waste of money. But my transports cooled when I thought of my inexperience and consequentunfitness for the position--and straightway, on top of this, my longarray of failures rose up before me. Yet if I refused this place I mustpresently become dependent upon somebody for my bread, a thingnecessarily distasteful to a man who had never experienced such ahumiliation since he was thirteen years old. Not much to be proud of, since it is so common--but then it was all I had to be proud of. So Iwas scared into being a city editor. I would have declined, otherwise. Necessity is the mother of "taking chances. " I do not doubt that if, atthat time, I had been offered a salary to translate the Talmud from theoriginal Hebrew, I would have accepted--albeit with diffidence and somemisgivings--and thrown as much variety into it as I could for the money. 

I went up to Virginia and entered upon my new vocation. I was a rustylooking city editor, I am free to confess--coatless, slouch hat, bluewoolen shirt, pantaloons stuffed into boot-tops, whiskered half down tothe waist, and the universal navy revolver slung to my belt. But Isecured a more Christian costume and discarded the revolver. 

I had never had occasion to kill anybody, nor ever felt a desire to doso, but had worn the thing in deference to popular sentiment, and inorder that I might not, by its absence, be offensively conspicuous, and asubject of remark. But the other editors, and all the printers, carriedrevolvers. I asked the chief editor and proprietor (Mr. Goodman, I willcall him, since it describes him as well as any name could do) for someinstructions with regard to my duties, and he told me to go all over townand ask all sorts of people all sorts of questions, make notes of theinformation gained, and write them out for publication. And he added:

"Never say 'We learn' so-and-so, or 'It is reported, ' or 'It is rumored, 'or 'We understand' so-and-so, but go to headquarters and get the absolutefacts, and then speak out and say 'It is so-and-so. ' Otherwise, peoplewill not put confidence in your news. Unassailable certainly is thething that gives a newspaper the firmest and most valuable reputation. "

It was the whole thing in a nut-shell; and to this day when I find areporter commencing his article with "We understand, " I gather asuspicion that he has not taken as much pains to inform himself as heought to have done. I moralize well, but I did not always practise wellwhen I was a city editor; I let fancy get the upper hand of fact toooften when there was a dearth of news. I can never forget my first day'sexperience as a reporter. I wandered about town questioning everybody, boring everybody, and finding out that nobody knew anything. At the endof five hours my notebook was still barren. I spoke to Mr. Goodman. Hesaid:

"Dan used to make a good thing out of the hay wagons in a dry time whenthere were no fires or inquests. Are there no hay wagons in from theTruckee? If there are, you might speak of the renewed activity and allthat sort of thing, in the hay business, you know. 

"It isn't sensational or exciting, but it fills up and looks businesslike. "

I canvassed the city again and found one wretched old hay truck draggingin from the country. But I made affluent use of it. I multiplied it bysixteen, brought it into town from sixteen different directions, madesixteen separate items out of it, and got up such another sweat about hayas Virginia City had never seen in the world before. 

This was encouraging. Two nonpareil columns had to be filled, and I wasgetting along. Presently, when things began to look dismal again, adesperado killed a man in a saloon and joy returned once more. I neverwas so glad over any mere trifle before in my life. I said to themurderer:

"Sir, you are a stranger to me, but you have done me a kindness this daywhich I can never forget. If whole years of gratitude can be to you anyslight compensation, they shall be yours. I was in trouble and you haverelieved me nobly and at a time when all seemed dark and drear. Count meyour friend from this time forth, for I am not a man to forget a favor. "

If I did not really say that to him I at least felt a sort of itchingdesire to do it. I wrote up the murder with a hungry attention todetails, and when it was finished experienced but one regret--namely, that they had not hanged my benefactor on the spot, so that I could workhim up too. 

Next I discovered some emigrant wagons going into camp on the plaza andfound that they had lately come through the hostile Indian country andhad fared rather roughly. I made the best of the item that thecircumstances permitted, and felt that if I were not confined withinrigid limits by the presence of the reporters of the other papers I couldadd particulars that would make the article much more interesting. However, I found one wagon that was going on to California, and made somejudicious inquiries of the proprietor. When I learned, through his shortand surly answers to my cross-questioning, that he was certainly going onand would not be in the city next day to make trouble, I got ahead of theother papers, for I took down his list of names and added his party tothe killed and wounded. Having more scope here, I put this wagon throughan Indian fight that to this day has no parallel in history. 

My two columns were filled. When I read them over in the morning I feltthat I had found my legitimate occupation at last. I reasoned withinmyself that news, and stirring news, too, was what a paper needed, and Ifelt that I was peculiarly endowed with the ability to furnish it. Mr. Goodman said that I was as good a reporter as Dan. I desired nohigher commendation. With encouragement like that, I felt that I couldtake my pen and murder all the immigrants on the plains if need be andthe interests of the paper demanded it. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

However, as I grew better acquainted with the business and learned therun of the sources of information I ceased to require the aid of fancy toany large extent, and became able to fill my columns without divergingnoticeably from the domain of fact. 

I struck up friendships with the reporters of the other journals, and weswapped "regulars" with each other and thus economized work. "Regulars"are permanent sources of news, like courts, bullion returns, "clean-ups"at the quartz mills, and inquests. Inasmuch as everybody went armed, wehad an inquest about every day, and so this department was naturally setdown among the "regulars. " We had lively papers in those days. My greatcompetitor among the reporters was Boggs of the Union. He was anexcellent reporter. Once in three or four months he would get a littleintoxicated, but as a general thing he was a wary and cautious drinkeralthough always ready to tamper a little with the enemy. He had theadvantage of me in one thing; he could get the monthly public schoolreport and I could not, because the principal hated the Enterprise. One snowy night when the report was due, I started out sadly wonderinghow I was going to get it. Presently, a few steps up the almost desertedstreet I stumbled on Boggs and asked him where he was going. 

"After the school report. "

"I'll go along with you. "

"No, sir. I'll excuse you. "

"Just as you say. "

A saloon-keeper's boy passed by with a steaming pitcher of hot punch, andBoggs snuffed the fragrance gratefully. He gazed fondly after the boyand saw him start up the Enterprise stairs. I said:

"I wish you could help me get that school business, but since you can't, I must run up to the Union office and see if I can get them to let mehave a proof of it after they have set it up, though I don't begin tosuppose they will. Good night. "

"Hold on a minute. I don't mind getting the report and sitting aroundwith the boys a little, while you copy it, if you're willing to drop downto the principal's with me. "

"Now you talk like a rational being. Come along. "

We plowed a couple of blocks through the snow, got the report andreturned to our office. It was a short document and soon copied. Meantime Boggs helped himself to the punch. I gave the manuscript backto him and we started out to get an inquest, for we heard pistol shotsnear by. We got the particulars with little loss of time, for it wasonly an inferior sort of bar-room murder, and of little interest to thepublic, and then we separated. Away at three o'clock in the morning, when we had gone to press and were having a relaxing concert as usual--for some of the printers were good singers and others good performers onthe guitar and on that atrocity the accordion--the proprietor of theUnion strode in and desired to know if anybody had heard anything ofBoggs or the school report. We stated the case, and all turned out tohelp hunt for the delinquent. We found him standing on a table in asaloon, with an old tin lantern in one hand and the school report in theother, haranguing a gang of intoxicated Cornish miners on the iniquity ofsquandering the public moneys on education "when hundreds and hundreds ofhonest hard-working men are literally starving for whiskey. " [Riotousapplause. ] He had been assisting in a regal spree with those parties forhours. We dragged him away and put him to bed. 

Of course there was no school report in the Union, and Boggs held meaccountable, though I was innocent of any intention or desire to compassits absence from that paper and was as sorry as any one that themisfortune had occurred. 

But we were perfectly friendly. The day that the school report was nextdue, the proprietor of the "Genessee" mine furnished us a buggy and askedus to go down and write something about the property--a very commonrequest and one always gladly acceded to when people furnished buggies, for we were as fond of pleasure excursions as other people. In due timewe arrived at the "mine"--nothing but a hole in the ground ninety feetdeep, and no way of getting down into it but by holding on to a rope andbeing lowered with a windlass. The workmen had just gone off somewhereto dinner. I was not strong enough to lower Boggs's bulk; so I took anunlighted candle in my teeth, made a loop for my foot in the end of therope, implored Boggs not to go to sleep or let the windlass get the startof him, and then swung out over the shaft. I reached the bottom muddyand bruised about the elbows, but safe. I lit the candle, made anexamination of the rock, selected some specimens and shouted to Boggs tohoist away. No answer. Presently a head appeared in the circle ofdaylight away aloft, and a voice came down:

"Are you all set?"

"All set--hoist away. "

"Are you comfortable?"

"Perfectly. "

"Could you wait a little?"

"Oh certainly--no particular hurry. "

"Well--good by. "

"Why? Where are you going?"

"After the school report!"

And he did. I staid down there an hour, and surprised the workmen whenthey hauled up and found a man on the rope instead of a bucket of rock. I walked home, too--five miles--up hill. We had no school report nextmorning; but the Union had. 

Six months after my entry into journalism the grand "flush times" ofSilverland began, and they continued with unabated splendor for threeyears. All difficulty about filling up the "local department" ceased, and the only trouble now was how to make the lengthened columns hold theworld of incidents and happenings that came to our literary net everyday. Virginia had grown to be the "livest" town, for its age andpopulation, that America had ever produced. The sidewalks swarmed withpeople--to such an extent, indeed, that it was generally no easy matterto stem the human tide. The streets themselves were just as crowded withquartz wagons, freight teams and other vehicles. The procession wasendless. So great was the pack, that buggies frequently had to wait halfan hour for an opportunity to cross the principal street. Joy sat onevery countenance, and there was a glad, almost fierce, intensity inevery eye, that told of the money-getting schemes that were seething inevery brain and the high hope that held sway in every heart. Money wasas plenty as dust; every individual considered himself wealthy, and amelancholy countenance was nowhere to be seen. There were militarycompanies, fire companies, brass bands, banks, hotels, theatres, "hurdy-gurdy houses, " wide-open gambling palaces, political pow-wows, civic processions, street fights, murders, inquests, riots, a whiskeymill every fifteen steps, a Board of Aldermen, a Mayor, a City Surveyor, a City Engineer, a Chief of the Fire Department, with First, Second andThird Assistants, a Chief of Police, City Marshal and a large policeforce, two Boards of Mining Brokers, a dozen breweries and half a dozenjails and station-houses in full operation, and some talk of building achurch. The "flush times" were in magnificent flower! Large fire-proofbrick buildings were going up in the principal streets, and the woodensuburbs were spreading out in all directions. Town lots soared up toprices that were amazing. 

The great "Comstock lode" stretched its opulent length straight throughthe town from north to south, and every mine on it was in diligentprocess of development. One of these mines alone employed six hundredand seventy-five men, and in the matter of elections the adage was, "asthe 'Gould and Curry' goes, so goes the city. " Laboring men's wages werefour and six dollars a day, and they worked in three "shifts" or gangs, and the blasting and picking and shoveling went on without ceasing, nightand day. 

The "city" of Virginia roosted royally midway up the steep side of MountDavidson, seven thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea, andin the clear Nevada atmosphere was visible from a distance of fiftymiles! It claimed a population of fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand, and all day long half of this little army swarmed the streets like beesand the other half swarmed among the drifts and tunnels of the"Comstock, " hundreds of feet down in the earth directly under those samestreets. Often we felt our chairs jar, and heard the faint boom of ablast down in the bowels of the earth under the office. 

The mountain side was so steep that the entire town had a slant to itlike a roof. Each street was a terrace, and from each to the next streetbelow the descent was forty or fifty feet. The fronts of the houses werelevel with the street they faced, but their rear first floors werepropped on lofty stilts; a man could stand at a rear first floor windowof a C street house and look down the chimneys of the row of houses belowhim facing D street. It was a laborious climb, in that thin atmosphere, to ascend from D to A street, and you were panting and out of breath whenyou got there; but you could turn around and go down again like a housea-fire--so to speak. The atmosphere was so rarified, on account of thegreat altitude, that one's blood lay near the surface always, and thescratch of a pin was a disaster worth worrying about, for the chanceswere that a grievous erysipelas would ensue. But to offset this, thethin atmosphere seemed to carry healing to gunshot wounds, and therefore, to simply shoot your adversary through both lungs was a thing not likelyto afford you any permanent satisfaction, for he would be nearly certainto be around looking for you within the month, and not with an operaglass, either. 

From Virginia's airy situation one could look over a vast, far-reachingpanorama of mountain ranges and deserts; and whether the day was brightor overcast, whether the sun was rising or setting, or flaming in thezenith, or whether night and the moon held sway, the spectacle was alwaysimpressive and beautiful. Over your head Mount Davidson lifted its graydome, and before and below you a rugged canyon clove the battlementedhills, making a sombre gateway through which a soft-tinted desert wasglimpsed, with the silver thread of a river winding through it, borderedwith trees which many miles of distance diminished to a delicate fringe;and still further away the snowy mountains rose up and stretched theirlong barrier to the filmy horizon--far enough beyond a lake that burnedin the desert like a fallen sun, though that, itself, lay fifty milesremoved. Look from your window where you would, there was fascination inthe picture. At rare intervals--but very rare--there were clouds in ourskies, and then the setting sun would gild and flush and glorify thismighty expanse of scenery with a bewildering pomp of color that held theeye like a spell and moved the spirit like music. 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

My salary was increased to forty dollars a week. But I seldom drew it. I had plenty of other resources, and what were two broad twenty-dollargold pieces to a man who had his pockets full of such and a cumbersomeabundance of bright half dollars besides? [Paper money has never comeinto use on the Pacific coast. ] Reporting was lucrative, and every manin the town was lavish with his money and his "feet. " The city and allthe great mountain side were riddled with mining shafts. There were moremines than miners. True, not ten of these mines were yielding rock worthhauling to a mill, but everybody said, "Wait till the shaft gets downwhere the ledge comes in solid, and then you will see!" So nobody wasdiscouraged. These were nearly all "wild cat" mines, and whollyworthless, but nobody believed it then. The "Ophir, " the "Gould &Curry, " the "Mexican, " and other great mines on the Comstock lead inVirginia and Gold Hill were turning out huge piles of rich rock everyday, and every man believed that his little wild cat claim was as good asany on the "main lead" and would infallibly be worth a thousand dollars afoot when he "got down where it came in solid. " Poor fellow, he wasblessedly blind to the fact that he never would see that day. So thethousand wild cat shafts burrowed deeper and deeper into the earth day byday, and all men were beside themselves with hope and happiness. Howthey labored, prophesied, exulted! Surely nothing like it was ever seenbefore since the world began. Every one of these wild cat mines--notmines, but holes in the ground over imaginary mines--was incorporated andhad handsomely engraved "stock" and the stock was salable, too. It wasbought and sold with a feverish avidity in the boards every day. Youcould go up on the mountain side, scratch around and find a ledge (therewas no lack of them), put up a "notice" with a grandiloquent name in it, start a shaft, get your stock printed, and with nothing whatever to provethat your mine was worth a straw, you could put your stock on the marketand sell out for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. To make money, and make it fast, was as easy as it was to eat your dinner. 

Every man owned "feet" in fifty different wild cat mines and consideredhis fortune made. Think of a city with not one solitary poor man in it!One would suppose that when month after month went by and still not awild cat mine (by wild cat I mean, in general terms, any claim notlocated on the mother vein, i. E. , the "Comstock") yielded a ton of rockworth crushing, the people would begin to wonder if they were not puttingtoo much faith in their prospective riches; but there was not a thoughtof such a thing. They burrowed away, bought and sold, and were happy. 

New claims were taken up daily, and it was the friendly custom to runstraight to the newspaper offices, give the reporter forty or fifty"feet, " and get them to go and examine the mine and publish a notice ofit. They did not care a fig what you said about the property so you saidsomething. Consequently we generally said a word or two to the effectthat the "indications" were good, or that the ledge was "six feet wide, "or that the rock "resembled the Comstock" (and so it did--but as ageneral thing the resemblance was not startling enough to knock youdown). If the rock was moderately promising, we followed the custom ofthe country, used strong adjectives and frothed at the mouth as if a verymarvel in silver discoveries had transpired. If the mine was a"developed" one, and had no pay ore to show (and of course it hadn't), wepraised the tunnel; said it was one of the most infatuating tunnels inthe land; driveled and driveled about the tunnel till we ran entirely outof ecstasies--but never said a word about the rock. We would squanderhalf a column of adulation on a shaft, or a new wire rope, or a dressedpine windlass, or a fascinating force pump, and close with a burst ofadmiration of the "gentlemanly and efficient Superintendent" of the mine--but never utter a whisper about the rock. And those people were alwayspleased, always satisfied. Occasionally we patched up and varnished ourreputation for discrimination and stern, undeviating accuracy, by givingsome old abandoned claim a blast that ought to have made its dry bonesrattle--and then somebody would seize it and sell it on the fleetingnotoriety thus conferred upon it. 

There was nothing in the shape of a mining claim that was not salable. We received presents of "feet" every day. If we needed a hundred dollarsor so, we sold some; if not, we hoarded it away, satisfied that it wouldultimately be worth a thousand dollars a foot. I had a trunk about halffull of "stock. " When a claim made a stir in the market and went up to ahigh figure, I searched through my pile to see if I had any of its stock--and generally found it. 

The prices rose and fell constantly; but still a fall disturbed uslittle, because a thousand dollars a foot was our figure, and so we werecontent to let it fluctuate as much as it pleased till it reached it. My pile of stock was not all given to me by people who wished theirclaims "noticed. " At least half of it was given me by persons who had nothought of such a thing, and looked for nothing more than a simple verbal"thank you;" and you were not even obliged by law to furnish that. If you are coming up the street with a couple of baskets of apples inyour hands, and you meet a friend, you naturally invite him to take afew. That describes the condition of things in Virginia in the "flushtimes. " Every man had his pockets full of stock, and it was the actualcustom of the country to part with small quantities of it to friendswithout the asking. 

Very often it was a good idea to close the transaction instantly, when aman offered a stock present to a friend, for the offer was only good andbinding at that moment, and if the price went to a high figure shortlyafterward the procrastination was a thing to be regretted. Mr. Stewart(Senator, now, from Nevada) one day told me he would give me twenty feetof "Justis" stock if I would walk over to his office. It was worth fiveor ten dollars a foot. I asked him to make the offer good for next day, as I was just going to dinner. He said he would not be in town; so Irisked it and took my dinner instead of the stock. Within the week theprice went up to seventy dollars and afterward to a hundred and fifty, but nothing could make that man yield. I suppose he sold that stock ofmine and placed the guilty proceeds in his own pocket. [My revenge willbe found in the accompanying portrait. ] I met three friends oneafternoon, who said they had been buying "Overman" stock at auction ateight dollars a foot. One said if I would come up to his office he wouldgive me fifteen feet; another said he would add fifteen; the third saidhe would do the same. But I was going after an inquest and could notstop. A few weeks afterward they sold all their "Overman" at six hundreddollars a foot and generously came around to tell me about it--and alsoto urge me to accept of the next forty-five feet of it that people triedto force on me. 

These are actual facts, and I could make the list a long one and stillconfine myself strictly to the truth. Many a time friends gave us asmuch as twenty-five feet of stock that was selling at twenty-five dollarsa foot, and they thought no more of it than they would of offering aguest a cigar. These were "flush times" indeed! I thought they weregoing to last always, but somehow I never was much of a prophet. 

To show what a wild spirit possessed the mining brain of the community, I will remark that "claims" were actually "located" in excavations forcellars, where the pick had exposed what seemed to be quartz veins--andnot cellars in the suburbs, either, but in the very heart of the city;and forthwith stock would be issued and thrown on the market. It wassmall matter who the cellar belonged to--the "ledge" belonged to thefinder, and unless the United States government interfered (inasmuch asthe government holds the primary right to mines of the noble metals inNevada--or at least did then), it was considered to be his privilege towork it. Imagine a stranger staking out a mining claim among the costlyshrubbery in your front yard and calmly proceeding to lay waste theground with pick and shovel and blasting powder! It has been often donein California. In the middle of one of the principal business streets ofVirginia, a man "located" a mining claim and began a shaft on it. Hegave me a hundred feet of the stock and I sold it for a fine suit ofclothes because I was afraid somebody would fall down the shaft and suefor damages. I owned in another claim that was located in the middle ofanother street; and to show how absurd people can be, that "East India"stock (as it was called) sold briskly although there was an ancienttunnel running directly under the claim and any man could go into it andsee that it did not cut a quartz ledge or anything that remotelyresembled one. 

One plan of acquiring sudden wealth was to "salt" a wild cat claim andsell out while the excitement was up. The process was simple. 

The schemer located a worthless ledge, sunk a shaft on it, bought a wagonload of rich "Comstock" ore, dumped a portion of it into the shaft andpiled the rest by its side, above ground. Then he showed the property toa simpleton and sold it to him at a high figure. Of course the wagonload of rich ore was all that the victim ever got out of his purchase. A most remarkable case of "salting" was that of the "North Ophir. "It was claimed that this vein was a "remote extension" of the original"Ophir, " a valuable mine on the "Comstock. " For a few days everybody wastalking about the rich developments in the North Ophir. It was said thatit yielded perfectly pure silver in small, solid lumps. I went to theplace with the owners, and found a shaft six or eight feet deep, in thebottom of which was a badly shattered vein of dull, yellowish, unpromising rock. One would as soon expect to find silver in agrindstone. We got out a pan of the rubbish and washed it in a puddle, and sure enough, among the sediment we found half a dozen black, bullet-looking pellets of unimpeachable "native" silver. Nobody had everheard of such a thing before; science could not account for such a queernovelty. The stock rose to sixty-five dollars a foot, and at this figurethe world-renowned tragedian, McKean Buchanan, bought a commandinginterest and prepared to quit the stage once more--he was always doingthat. And then it transpired that the mine had been "salted"--and not inany hackneyed way, either, but in a singularly bold, barefaced andpeculiarly original and outrageous fashion. On one of the lumps of"native" silver was discovered the minted legend, "TED STATES OF, " andthen it was plainly apparent that the mine had been "salted" with meltedhalf-dollars! The lumps thus obtained had been blackened till theyresembled native silver, and were then mixed with the shattered rock inthe bottom of the shaft. It is literally true. Of course the price ofthe stock at once fell to nothing, and the tragedian was ruined. But forthis calamity we might have lost McKean Buchanan from the stage. 

CHAPTER XLV. 

The "flush times" held bravely on. Something over two years before, Mr. Goodman and another journeyman printer, had borrowed forty dollars andset out from San Francisco to try their fortunes in the new city ofVirginia. They found the Territorial Enterprise, a poverty-strickenweekly journal, gasping for breath and likely to die. They bought it, type, fixtures, good-will and all, for a thousand dollars, on long time. The editorial sanctum, news-room, press-room, publication office, bed-chamber, parlor, and kitchen were all compressed into one apartmentand it was a small one, too. The editors and printers slept on thefloor, a Chinaman did their cooking, and the "imposing-stone" was thegeneral dinner table. But now things were changed. The paper was agreat daily, printed by steam; there were five editors and twenty-threecompositors; the subscription price was sixteen dollars a year; theadvertising rates were exorbitant, and the columns crowded. The paperwas clearing from six to ten thousand dollars a month, and the"Enterprise Building" was finished and ready for occupation--a statelyfireproof brick. Every day from five all the way up to eleven columnsof "live" advertisements were left out or crowded into spasmodic andirregular "supplements. "

The "Gould & Curry" company were erecting a monster hundred-stamp mill ata cost that ultimately fell little short of a million dollars. Gould &Curry stock paid heavy dividends--a rare thing, and an experienceconfined to the dozen or fifteen claims located on the "main lead, " the"Comstock. " The Superintendent of the Gould & Curry lived, rent free, ina fine house built and furnished by the company. He drove a fine pair ofhorses which were a present from the company, and his salary was twelvethousand dollars a year. The superintendent of another of the greatmines traveled in grand state, had a salary of twenty-eight thousanddollars a year, and in a law suit in after days claimed that he was tohave had one per cent. On the gross yield of the bullion likewise. 

Money was wonderfully plenty. The trouble was, not how to get it, --buthow to spend it, how to lavish it, get rid of it, squander it. And so itwas a happy thing that just at this juncture the news came over the wiresthat a great United States Sanitary Commission had been formed and moneywas wanted for the relief of the wounded sailors and soldiers of theUnion languishing in the Eastern hospitals. Right on the heels of itcame word that San Francisco had responded superbly before the telegramwas half a day old. Virginia rose as one man! A Sanitary Committee washurriedly organized, and its chairman mounted a vacant cart in C streetand tried to make the clamorous multitude understand that the rest of thecommittee were flying hither and thither and working with all their mightand main, and that if the town would only wait an hour, an office wouldbe ready, books opened, and the Commission prepared to receivecontributions. His voice was drowned and his information lost in aceaseless roar of cheers, and demands that the money be received now--they swore they would not wait. The chairman pleaded and argued, but, deaf to all entreaty, men plowed their way through the throng and rainedchecks of gold coin into the cart and skurried away for more. Handsclutching money, were thrust aloft out of the jam by men who hoped thiseloquent appeal would cleave a road their strugglings could not open. The very Chinamen and Indians caught the excitement and dashed their halfdollars into the cart without knowing or caring what it was all about. Women plunged into the crowd, trimly attired, fought their way to thecart with their coin, and emerged again, by and by, with their apparel ina state of hopeless dilapidation. It was the wildest mob Virginia hadever seen and the most determined and ungovernable; and when at last itabated its fury and dispersed, it had not a penny in its pocket. 

To use its own phraseology, it came there "flush" and went away "busted. "

After that, the Commission got itself into systematic working order, andfor weeks the contributions flowed into its treasury in a generousstream. Individuals and all sorts of organizations levied uponthemselves a regular weekly tax for the sanitary fund, graduatedaccording to their means, and there was not another grand universaloutburst till the famous "Sanitary Flour Sack" came our way. Its historyis peculiar and interesting. A former schoolmate of mine, by the name ofReuel Gridley, was living at the little city of Austin, in the Reeseriver country, at this time, and was the Democratic candidate for mayor. He and the Republican candidate made an agreement that the defeated manshould be publicly presented with a fifty-pound sack of flour by thesuccessful one, and should carry it home on his shoulder. Gridley wasdefeated. The new mayor gave him the sack of flour, and he shouldered itand carried it a mile or two, from Lower Austin to his home in UpperAustin, attended by a band of music and the whole population. Arrivedthere, he said he did not need the flour, and asked what the peoplethought he had better do with it. A voice said:

"Sell it to the highest bidder, for the benefit of the Sanitary fund. "

The suggestion was greeted with a round of applause, and Gridley mounteda dry-goods box and assumed the role of auctioneer. The bids went higherand higher, as the sympathies of the pioneers awoke and expanded, till atlast the sack was knocked down to a mill man at two hundred and fiftydollars, and his check taken. He was asked where he would have the flourdelivered, and he said:

"Nowhere--sell it again. "

Now the cheers went up royally, and the multitude were fairly in thespirit of the thing. So Gridley stood there and shouted and perspiredtill the sun went down; and when the crowd dispersed he had sold the sackto three hundred different people, and had taken in eight thousanddollars in gold. And still the flour sack was in his possession. 

The news came to Virginia, and a telegram went back:

"Fetch along your flour sack!"

Thirty-six hours afterward Gridley arrived, and an afternoon mass meetingwas held in the Opera House, and the auction began. But the sack hadcome sooner than it was expected; the people were not thoroughly aroused, and the sale dragged. At nightfall only five thousand dollars had beensecured, and there was a crestfallen feeling in the community. However, there was no disposition to let the matter rest here and acknowledgevanquishment at the hands of the village of Austin. Till late in thenight the principal citizens were at work arranging the morrow'scampaign, and when they went to bed they had no fears for the result. At eleven the next morning a procession of open carriages, attended byclamorous bands of music and adorned with a moving display of flags, filed along C street and was soon in danger of blockade by a huzzaingmultitude of citizens. In the first carriage sat Gridley, with the floursack in prominent view, the latter splendid with bright paint and giltlettering; also in the same carriage sat the mayor and the recorder. The other carriages contained the Common Council, the editors andreporters, and other people of imposing consequence. The crowd pressedto the corner of C and Taylor streets, expecting the sale to begin there, but they were disappointed, and also unspeakably surprised; for thecavalcade moved on as if Virginia had ceased to be of importance, andtook its way over the "divide, " toward the small town of Gold Hill. Telegrams had gone ahead to Gold Hill, Silver City and Dayton, and thosecommunities were at fever heat and rife for the conflict. It was a veryhot day, and wonderfully dusty. At the end of a short half hour wedescended into Gold Hill with drums beating and colors flying, andenveloped in imposing clouds of dust. The whole population--men, womenand children, Chinamen and Indians, were massed in the main street, allthe flags in town were at the mast head, and the blare of the bands wasdrowned in cheers. Gridley stood up and asked who would make the firstbid for the National Sanitary Flour Sack. Gen. W. Said:

"The Yellow Jacket silver mining company offers a thousand dollars, coin!"

A tempest of applause followed. A telegram carried the news to Virginia, and fifteen minutes afterward that city's population was massed in thestreets devouring the tidings--for it was part of the programme that thebulletin boards should do a good work that day. Every few minutes a newdispatch was bulletined from Gold Hill, and still the excitement grew. Telegrams began to return to us from Virginia beseeching Gridley to bringback the flour sack; but such was not the plan of the campaign. At theend of an hour Gold Hill's small population had paid a figure for theflour sack that awoke all the enthusiasm of Virginia when the grand totalwas displayed upon the bulletin boards. Then the Gridley cavalcade movedon, a giant refreshed with new lager beer and plenty of it--for thepeople brought it to the carriages without waiting to measure it--andwithin three hours more the expedition had carried Silver City and Daytonby storm and was on its way back covered with glory. Every move had beentelegraphed and bulletined, and as the procession entered Virginia andfiled down C street at half past eight in the evening the town was abroadin the thoroughfares, torches were glaring, flags flying, bands playing, cheer on cheer cleaving the air, and the city ready to surrender atdiscretion. The auction began, every bid was greeted with bursts ofapplause, and at the end of two hours and a half a population of fifteenthousand souls had paid in coin for a fifty-pound sack of flour a sumequal to forty thousand dollars in greenbacks! It was at a rate in theneighborhood of three dollars for each man, woman and child of thepopulation. The grand total would have been twice as large, but thestreets were very narrow, and hundreds who wanted to bid could not getwithin a block of the stand, and could not make themselves heard. Thesegrew tired of waiting and many of them went home long before the auctionwas over. This was the greatest day Virginia ever saw, perhaps. 

Gridley sold the sack in Carson city and several California towns; alsoin San Francisco. Then he took it east and sold it in one or twoAtlantic cities, I think. I am not sure of that, but I know that hefinally carried it to St. Louis, where a monster Sanitary Fair was beingheld, and after selling it there for a large sum and helping on theenthusiasm by displaying the portly silver bricks which Nevada's donationhad produced, he had the flour baked up into small cakes and retailedthem at high prices. 

It was estimated that when the flour sack's mission was ended it had beensold for a grand total of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars ingreenbacks! This is probably the only instance on record where commonfamily flour brought three thousand dollars a pound in the public market. 

It is due to Mr. Gridley's memory to mention that the expenses of hissanitary flour sack expedition of fifteen thousand miles, going andreturning, were paid in large part if not entirely, out of his ownpocket. The time he gave to it was not less than three months. Mr. Gridley was a soldier in the Mexican war and a pioneer Californian. He died at Stockton, California, in December, 1870, greatly regretted. 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

There were nabobs in those days--in the "flush times, " I mean. Everyrich strike in the mines created one or two. I call to mind several ofthese. They were careless, easy-going fellows, as a general thing, andthe community at large was as much benefited by their riches as they werethemselves--possibly more, in some cases. 

Two cousins, teamsters, did some hauling for a man and had to take asmall segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu of $300 cash. Theygave an outsider a third to open the mine, and they went on teaming. Butnot long. Ten months afterward the mine was out of debt and paying eachowner $8, 000 to $10, 000 a month--say $100, 000 a year. 

One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of wore $6, 000 worthof diamonds in his bosom, and swore he was unhappy because he could notspend his money as fast as he made it. 

Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that often reached $16, 000 amonth; and he used to love to tell how he had worked in the very minethat yielded it, for five dollars a day, when he first came to thecountry. 

The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another of these pets offortune--lifted from actual poverty to affluence almost in a singlenight--who was able to offer $100, 000 for a position of high officialdistinction, shortly afterward, and did offer it--but failed to get it, his politics not being as sound as his bank account. 

Then there was John Smith. He was a good, honest, kind-hearted soul, born and reared in the lower ranks of life, and miraculously ignorant. He drove a team, and owned a small ranch--a ranch that paid him acomfortable living, for although it yielded but little hay, what littleit did yield was worth from $250 to $300 in gold per ton in the market. Presently Smith traded a few acres of the ranch for a small undevelopedsilver mine in Gold Hill. He opened the mine and built a littleunpretending ten-stamp mill. Eighteen months afterward he retired fromthe hay business, for his mining income had reached a most comfortablefigure. Some people said it was $30, 000 a month, and others said it was$60, 000. Smith was very rich at any rate. 

And then he went to Europe and traveled. And when he came back he wasnever tired of telling about the fine hogs he had seen in England, andthe gorgeous sheep he had seen in Spain, and the fine cattle he hadnoticed in the vicinity of Rome. He was full of wonders of the oldworld, and advised everybody to travel. He said a man never imaginedwhat surprising things there were in the world till he had traveled. 

One day, on board ship, the passengers made up a pool of $500, which wasto be the property of the man who should come nearest to guessing the runof the vessel for the next twenty-four hours. Next day, toward noon, thefigures were all in the purser's hands in sealed envelopes. Smith wasserene and happy, for he had been bribing the engineer. But anotherparty won the prize! Smith said:

"Here, that won't do! He guessed two miles wider of the mark than I did. "

The purser said, "Mr. Smith, you missed it further than any man on board. We traveled two hundred and eight miles yesterday. "

"Well, sir, " said Smith, "that's just where I've got you, for I guessedtwo hundred and nine. If you'll look at my figgers again you'll find a 2and two 0's, which stands for 200, don't it?--and after 'em you'll find a9 (2009), which stands for two hundred and nine. I reckon I'll take thatmoney, if you please. "

The Gould & Curry claim comprised twelve hundred feet, and it allbelonged originally to the two men whose names it bears. Mr. Curry ownedtwo thirds of it--and he said that he sold it out for twenty-five hundreddollars in cash, and an old plug horse that ate up his market value inhay and barley in seventeen days by the watch. And he said that Gouldsold out for a pair of second-hand government blankets and a bottle ofwhisky that killed nine men in three hours, and that an unoffendingstranger that smelt the cork was disabled for life. Four years afterwardthe mine thus disposed of was worth in the San Francisco market sevenmillions six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin. 

In the early days a poverty-stricken Mexican who lived in a canyondirectly back of Virginia City, had a stream of water as large as a man'swrist trickling from the hill-side on his premises. The Ophir Companysegregated a hundred feet of their mine and traded it to him for thestream of water. The hundred feet proved to be the richest part of theentire mine; four years after the swap, its market value (including itsmill) was $1, 500, 000. 

An individual who owned twenty feet in the Ophir mine before its greatriches were revealed to men, traded it for a horse, and a very sorrylooking brute he was, too. A year or so afterward, when Ophir stock wentup to $3, 000 a foot, this man, who had not a cent, used to say he was themost startling example of magnificence and misery the world had everseen--because he was able to ride a sixty-thousand-dollar horse--yetcould not scrape up cash enough to buy a saddle, and was obliged toborrow one or ride bareback. He said if fortune were to give him anothersixty-thousand-dollar horse it would ruin him. 

A youth of nineteen, who was a telegraph operator in Virginia on a salaryof a hundred dollars a month, and who, when he could not make out Germannames in the list of San Francisco steamer arrivals, used to ingeniouslyselect and supply substitutes for them out of an old Berlin citydirectory, made himself rich by watching the mining telegrams that passedthrough his hands and buying and selling stocks accordingly, through afriend in San Francisco. Once when a private dispatch was sent fromVirginia announcing a rich strike in a prominent mine and advising thatthe matter be kept secret till a large amount of the stock could besecured, he bought forty "feet" of the stock at twenty dollars a foot, and afterward sold half of it at eight hundred dollars a foot and therest at double that figure. Within three months he was worth $150, 000, and had resigned his telegraphic position. 

Another telegraph operator who had been discharged by the company fordivulging the secrets of the office, agreed with a moneyed man in SanFrancisco to furnish him the result of a great Virginia mining lawsuitwithin an hour after its private reception by the parties to it in SanFrancisco. For this he was to have a large percentage of the profits onpurchases and sales made on it by his fellow-conspirator. So he went, disguised as a teamster, to a little wayside telegraph office in themountains, got acquainted with the operator, and sat in the office dayafter day, smoking his pipe, complaining that his team was fagged out andunable to travel--and meantime listening to the dispatches as they passedclicking through the machine from Virginia. Finally the private dispatchannouncing the result of the lawsuit sped over the wires, and as soon ashe heard it he telegraphed his friend in San Francisco:

"Am tired waiting. Shall sell the team and go home. "

It was the signal agreed upon. The word "waiting" left out, would havesignified that the suit had gone the other way. 

The mock teamster's friend picked up a deal of the mining stock, at lowfigures, before the news became public, and a fortune was the result. 

For a long time after one of the great Virginia mines had beenincorporated, about fifty feet of the original location were still in thehands of a man who had never signed the incorporation papers. The stockbecame very valuable, and every effort was made to find this man, but hehad disappeared. Once it was heard that he was in New York, and one ortwo speculators went east but failed to find him. Once the news camethat he was in the Bermudas, and straightway a speculator or two hurriedeast and sailed for Bermuda--but he was not there. Finally he was heardof in Mexico, and a friend of his, a bar-keeper on a salary, scrapedtogether a little money and sought him out, bought his "feet" for ahundred dollars, returned and sold the property for $75, 000. 

But why go on? The traditions of Silverland are filled with instanceslike these, and I would never get through enumerating them were I toattempt do it. I only desired to give, the reader an idea of apeculiarity of the "flush times" which I could not present so strikinglyin any other way, and which some mention of was necessary to a realizingcomprehension of the time and the country. 

I was personally acquainted with the majority of the nabobs I havereferred to, and so, for old acquaintance sake, I have shifted theiroccupations and experiences around in such a way as to keep the Pacificpublic from recognizing these once notorious men. No longer notorious, for the majority of them have drifted back into poverty and obscurityagain. 

In Nevada there used to be current the story of an adventure of two ofher nabobs, which may or may not have occurred. I give it for what it isworth:

Col. Jim had seen somewhat of the world, and knew more or less of itsways; but Col. Jack was from the back settlements of the States, had leda life of arduous toil, and had never seen a city. These two, blessedwith sudden wealth, projected a visit to New York, --Col. Jack to see thesights, and Col. Jim to guard his unsophistication from misfortune. Theyreached San Francisco in the night, and sailed in the morning. Arrivedin New York, Col. Jack said:

"I've heard tell of carriages all my life, and now I mean to have a ridein one; I don't care what it costs. Come along. "

They stepped out on the sidewalk, and Col. Jim called a stylish barouche. But Col. Jack said:

"No, sir! None of your cheap-John turn-outs for me. I'm here to have agood time, and money ain't any object. I mean to have the nobbiest rigthat's going. Now here comes the very trick. Stop that yaller one withthe pictures on it--don't you fret--I'll stand all the expenses myself. "

So Col. Jim stopped an empty omnibus, and they got in. Said Col. Jack:

"Ain't it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not! Cushions, and windows, andpictures, till you can't rest. What would the boys say if they could seeus cutting a swell like this in New York? By George, I wish they couldsee us. "

Then he put his head out of the window, and shouted to the driver:

"Say, Johnny, this suits me!--suits yours truly, you bet, you! I wantthis shebang all day. I'm on it, old man! Let 'em out! Make 'em go!We'll make it all right with you, sonny!"

The driver passed his hand through the strap-hole, and tapped for hisfare--it was before the gongs came into common use. Col. Jack took thehand, and shook it cordially. He said:

"You twig me, old pard! All right between gents. Smell of that, and seehow you like it!"

And he put a twenty-dollar gold piece in the driver's hand. After amoment the driver said he could not make change. 

"Bother the change! Ride it out. Put it in your pocket. "

Then to Col. Jim, with a sounding slap on his thigh:

"Ain't it style, though? Hanged if I don't hire this thing every day fora week. "

The omnibus stopped, and a young lady got in. Col. Jack stared a moment, then nudged Col. Jim with his elbow:

"Don't say a word, " he whispered. "Let her ride, if she wants to. Gracious, there's room enough. "

The young lady got out her porte-monnaie, and handed her fare to Col. Jack. 

"What's this for?" said he. 

"Give it to the driver, please. "

"Take back your money, madam. We can't allow it. You're welcome to ridehere as long as you please, but this shebang's chartered, and we can'tlet you pay a cent. "

The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old lady with a basketclimbed in, and proffered her fare. 

"Excuse me, " said Col. Jack. "You're perfectly welcome here, madam, butwe can't allow you to pay. Set right down there, mum, and don't you bethe least uneasy. Make yourself just as free as if you was in your ownturn-out. "

Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat women, and a couple ofchildren, entered. 

"Come right along, friends, " said Col. Jack; "don't mind us. This is afree blow-out. " Then he whispered to Col. Jim, "New York ain't no sociable place, I don't reckon--it ain't no name forit!"

He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver, and made everybodycordially welcome. The situation dawned on the people, and they pocketedtheir money, and delivered themselves up to covert enjoyment of theepisode. Half a dozen more passengers entered. 

"Oh, there's plenty of room, " said Col. Jack. "Walk right in, and makeyourselves at home. A blow-out ain't worth anything as a blow-out, unless a body has company. " Then in a whisper to Col. Jim: "But ain'tthese New Yorkers friendly? And ain't they cool about it, too? Icebergsain't anywhere. I reckon they'd tackle a hearse, if it was going theirway. "

More passengers got in; more yet, and still more. Both seats werefilled, and a file of men were standing up, holding on to the cleatsoverhead. Parties with baskets and bundles were climbing up on the roof. Half-suppressed laughter rippled up from all sides. 

"Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don't bang anythingthat ever I saw, I'm an Injun!" whispered Col. Jack. 

A Chinaman crowded his way in. 

"I weaken!" said Col. Jack. "Hold on, driver! Keep your seats, ladies, and gents. Just make yourselves free--everything's paid for. Driver, rustle these folks around as long as they're a mind to go--friends ofours, you know. Take them everywheres--and if you want more money, cometo the St. Nicholas, and we'll make it all right. Pleasant journey toyou, ladies and gents--go it just as long as you please--it shan't costyou a cent!"

The two comrades got out, and Col. Jack said:

"Jimmy, it's the sociablest place I ever saw. The Chinaman waltzed in ascomfortable as anybody. If we'd staid awhile, I reckon we'd had someniggers. B' George, we'll have to barricade our doors to-night, or someof these ducks will be trying to sleep with us. "

CHAPTER XLVII. 

Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must observe thestyle of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with mostceremony. I cannot say which class we buried with most eclat in our"flush times, " the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguishedrough--possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of societyhonored their illustrious dead about equally; and hence, no doubt thephilosopher I have quoted from would have needed to see tworepresentative funerals in Virginia before forming his estimate of thepeople. 

There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was arepresentative citizen. He had "killed his man"--not in his own quarrel, it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashinghelpmeet whom he could have discarded without the formality of a divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department and been a veryWarwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation throughoutthe town, but especially in the vast bottom-stratum of society. 

On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of awasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body, cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken hisneck--and after due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but withintelligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of death "bythe visitation of God. " What could the world do without juries?

Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles intown were hired, all the saloons put in mourning, all the municipal andfire-company flags hung at half-mast, and all the firemen ordered tomuster in uniform and bring their machines duly draped in black. Now--let us remark in parenthesis--as all the peoples of the earth hadrepresentative adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer hadbrought the slang of his nation or his locality with him, the combinationmade the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely varied andcopious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps, except inthe mines of California in the "early days. " Slang was the language ofNevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be understood. Such phrases as "You bet!" "Oh, no, I reckon not!" "No Irish needapply, " and a hundred others, became so common as to fall from the lipsof a speaker unconsciously--and very often when they did not touch thesubject under discussion and consequently failed to mean anything. 

After Buck Fanshaw's inquest, a meeting of the short-haired brotherhoodwas held, for nothing can be done on the Pacific coast without a publicmeeting and an expression of sentiment. Regretful resolutions werepassed and various committees appointed; among others, a committee of onewas deputed to call on the minister, a fragile, gentle, spiritual newfledgling from an Eastern theological seminary, and as yet unacquaintedwith the ways of the mines. The committeeman, "Scotty" Briggs, made hisvisit; and in after days it was worth something to hear the minister tellabout it. Scotty was a stalwart rough, whose customary suit, when onweighty official business, like committee work, was a fire helmet, flaming red flannel shirt, patent leather belt with spanner and revolverattached, coat hung over arm, and pants stuffed into boot tops. He formed something of a contrast to the pale theological student. It isfair to say of Scotty, however, in passing, that he had a warm heart, anda strong love for his friends, and never entered into a quarrel when hecould reasonably keep out of it. Indeed, it was commonly said thatwhenever one of Scotty's fights was investigated, it always turned outthat it had originally been no affair of his, but that out of nativegood-heartedness he had dropped in of his own accord to help the man whowas getting the worst of it. He and Buck Fanshaw were bosom friends, foryears, and had often taken adventurous "pot-luck" together. On oneoccasion, they had thrown off their coats and taken the weaker side in afight among strangers, and after gaining a hard-earned victory, turnedand found that the men they were helping had deserted early, and not onlythat, but had stolen their coats and made off with them! But to returnto Scotty's visit to the minister. He was on a sorrowful mission, now, and his face was the picture of woe. Being admitted to the presence hesat down before the clergyman, placed his fire-hat on an unfinishedmanuscript sermon under the minister's nose, took from it a red silkhandkerchief, wiped his brow and heaved a sigh of dismal impressiveness, explanatory of his business. 

He choked, and even shed tears; but with an effort he mastered his voiceand said in lugubrious tones:

"Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door?"

"Am I the--pardon me, I believe I do not understand?"

With another sigh and a half-sob, Scotty rejoined:

"Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought maybe youwould give us a lift, if we'd tackle you--that is, if I've got the rightsof it and you are the head clerk of the doxology-works next door. "

"I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next door. "

"The which?"

"The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose sanctuaryadjoins these premises. "

Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then said:

"You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't call that hand. Anteand pass the buck. "

"How? I beg pardon. What did I understand you to say?"

"Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. Or maybe we've both got thebulge, somehow. You don't smoke me and I don't smoke you. You see, oneof the boys has passed in his checks and we want to give him a goodsend-off, and so the thing I'm on now is to roust out somebody to jerka little chin-music for us and waltz him through handsome. "

"My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your observationsare wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot you simplify them in some way?At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would itnot expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical statementsof fact unencumbered with obstructing accumulations of metaphor andallegory?"

Another pause, and more reflection. Then, said Scotty:

"I'll have to pass, I judge. "

"How?"

"You've raised me out, pard. "

"I still fail to catch your meaning. "

"Why, that last lead of yourn is too many for me--that's the idea. Ican't neither-trump nor follow suit. "

The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty leaned his headon his hand and gave himself up to thought. 

Presently his face came up, sorrowful but confident. 

"I've got it now, so's you can savvy, " he said. "What we want is agospel-sharp. See?"

"A what?"

"Gospel-sharp. Parson. "

"Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a clergyman--a parson. "

"Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle it like a man. Put itthere!"--extending a brawny paw, which closed over the minister's smallhand and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal sympathy and ferventgratification. 

"Now we're all right, pard. Let's start fresh. Don't you mind mysnuffling a little--becuz we're in a power of trouble. You see, one ofthe boys has gone up the flume--"

"Gone where?"

"Up the flume--throwed up the sponge, you understand. "

"Thrown up the sponge?"

"Yes--kicked the bucket--"

"Ah--has departed to that mysterious country from whose bourne notraveler returns. "

"Return! I reckon not. Why pard, he's dead!"

"Yes, I understand. "

"Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might be getting tangled somemore. Yes, you see he's dead again--"

"Again? Why, has he ever been dead before?"

"Dead before? No! Do you reckon a man has got as many lives as a cat?But you bet you he's awful dead now, poor old boy, and I wish I'd neverseen this day. I don't want no better friend than Buck Fanshaw. I knowed him by the back; and when I know a man and like him, I freeze tohim--you hear me. Take him all round, pard, there never was a bullierman in the mines. No man ever knowed Buck Fanshaw to go back on afriend. But it's all up, you know, it's all up. It ain't no use. They've scooped him. "

"Scooped him?"

"Yes--death has. Well, well, well, we've got to give him up. Yesindeed. It's a kind of a hard world, after all, ain't it? But pard, hewas a rustler! You ought to seen him get started once. He was a bullyboy with a glass eye! Just spit in his face and give him room accordingto his strength, and it was just beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was the worst son of a thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was onit! He was on it bigger than an Injun!"

"On it? On what?"

"On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. He didn't give a continental for any body. Beg your pardon, friend, forcoming so near saying a cuss-word--but you see I'm on an awful strain, inthis palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything somild. But we've got to give him up. There ain't any getting aroundthat, I don't reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him--"

"Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the obsequies?"

"Obs'quies is good. Yes. That's it--that's our little game. We aregoing to get the thing up regardless, you know. He was always niftyhimself, and so you bet you his funeral ain't going to be no slouch--solid silver door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and anigger on the box in a biled shirt and a plug hat--how's that for high?And we'll take care of you, pard. We'll fix you all right. There'll bea kerridge for you; and whatever you want, you just 'scape out and we'll'tend to it. We've got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind, inNo. 1's house, and don't you be afraid. Just go in and toot your horn, if you don't sell a clam. Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for anybody that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the whitestmen that was ever in the mines. You can't draw it too strong. He nevercould stand it to see things going wrong. He's done more to make thistown quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I've seen him lick fourGreasers in eleven minutes, myself. If a thing wanted regulating, hewarn't a man to go browsing around after somebody to do it, but he wouldprance in and regulate it himself. He warn't a Catholic. Scasely. Hewas down on 'em. His word was, 'No Irish need apply!' But it didn'tmake no difference about that when it came down to what a man's rightswas--and so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic bone-yard and startedin to stake out town-lots in it he went for 'em! And he cleaned 'em, too! I was there, pard, and I seen it myself. "

"That was very well indeed--at least the impulse was--whether the act wasstrictly defensible or not. Had deceased any religious convictions?That is to say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge allegianceto a higher power?"

More reflection. 

"I reckon you've stumped me again, pard. Could you say it over oncemore, and say it slow?"

"Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he ever beenconnected with any organization sequestered from secular concerns anddevoted to self-sacrifice in the interests of morality?"

"All down but nine--set 'em up on the other alley, pard. "

"What did I understand you to say?"

"Why, you're most too many for me, you know. When you get in with yourleft I hunt grass every time. Every time you draw, you fill; but I don'tseem to have any luck. Lets have a new deal. "

"How? Begin again?"

"That's it. "

"Very well. Was he a good man, and--"

"There--I see that; don't put up another chip till I look at my hand. A good man, says you? Pard, it ain't no name for it. He was the bestman that ever--pard, you would have doted on that man. He could lam anygaloot of his inches in America. It was him that put down the riot lastelection before it got a start; and everybody said he was the only manthat could have done it. He waltzed in with a spanner in one hand and atrumpet in the other, and sent fourteen men home on a shutter in lessthan three minutes. He had that riot all broke up and prevented nicebefore anybody ever got a chance to strike a blow. He was always forpeace, and he would have peace--he could not stand disturbances. Pard, he was a great loss to this town. It would please the boys if you couldchip in something like that and do him justice. Here once when the Micksgot to throwing stones through the Methodis' Sunday school windows, BuckFanshaw, all of his own notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple ofsix-shooters and mounted guard over the Sunday school. Says he, 'NoIrish need apply!' And they didn't. He was the bulliest man in themountains, pard! He could run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and holdmore tangle-foot whisky without spilling it than any man in seventeencounties. Put that in, pard--it'll please the boys more than anythingyou could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his mother. "

"Never shook his mother?"

"That's it--any of the boys will tell you so. "

"Well, but why should he shake her?"

"That's what I say--but some people does. "

"Not people of any repute?"

"Well, some that averages pretty so-so. "

"In my opinion the man that would offer personal violence to his ownmother, ought to--"

"Cheese it, pard; you've banked your ball clean outside the string. What I was a drivin' at, was, that he never throwed off on his mother--don't you see? No indeedy. He give her a house to live in, and townlots, and plenty of money; and he looked after her and took care of herall the time; and when she was down with the small-pox I'm d---d if hedidn't set up nights and nuss her himself! Beg your pardon for sayingit, but it hopped out too quick for yours truly. 

"You've treated me like a gentleman, pard, and I ain't the man to hurtyour feelings intentional. I think you're white. I think you're asquare man, pard. I like you, and I'll lick any man that don't. I'lllick him till he can't tell himself from a last year's corpse! Put itthere!" [Another fraternal hand-shake--and exit. ]

The obsequies were all that "the boys" could desire. Such a marvel offuneral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, thedirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flagsdrooping at half mast, the long, plodding procession of uniformed secretsocieties, military battalions and fire companies, draped engines, carriages of officials, and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attractedmultitudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs and windows; and foryears afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display inVirginia was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw's funeral. 

Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a prominent placeat the funeral, and when the sermon was finished and the last sentence ofthe prayer for the dead man's soul ascended, he responded, in a lowvoice, but with feelings:

"AMEN. No Irish need apply. "

As the bulk of the response was without apparent relevancy, it wasprobably nothing more than a humble tribute to the memory of the friendthat was gone; for, as Scotty had once said, it was "his word. "

Scotty Briggs, in after days, achieved the distinction of becoming theonly convert to religion that was ever gathered from the Virginia roughs;and it transpired that the man who had it in him to espouse the quarrelof the weak out of inborn nobility of spirit was no mean timber whereofto construct a Christian. The making him one did not warp his generosityor diminish his courage; on the contrary it gave intelligent direction tothe one and a broader field to the other. 

If his Sunday-school class progressed faster than the other classes, wasit matter for wonder? I think not. He talked to his pioneer small-fryin a language they understood! It was my large privilege, a month beforehe died, to hear him tell the beautiful story of Joseph and his brethrento his class "without looking at the book. " I leave it to the reader tofancy what it was like, as it fell, riddled with slang, from the lips ofthat grave, earnest teacher, and was listened to by his little learnerswith a consuming interest that showed that they were as unconscious as hewas that any violence was being done to the sacred proprieties!

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

The first twenty-six graves in the Virginia cemetery were occupied bymurdered men. So everybody said, so everybody believed, and so they willalways say and believe. The reason why there was so much slaughteringdone, was, that in a new mining district the rough element predominates, and a person is not respected until he has "killed his man. " That wasthe very expression used. 

If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if he was capable, honest, industrious, but--had he killed his man? If he had not, hegravitated to his natural and proper position, that of a man of smallconsequence; if he had, the cordiality of his reception was graduatedaccording to the number of his dead. It was tedious work struggling upto a position of influence with bloodless hands; but when a man came withthe blood of half a dozen men on his soul, his worth was recognized atonce and his acquaintance sought. 

In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, the chiefdesperado, the chief gambler, and the saloon keeper, occupied the samelevel in society, and it was the highest. The cheapest and easiest wayto become an influential man and be looked up to by the community atlarge, was to stand behind a bar, wear a cluster-diamond pin, and sellwhisky. I am not sure but that the saloon-keeper held a shade higherrank than any other member of society. His opinion had weight. It washis privilege to say how the elections should go. No great movementcould succeed without the countenance and direction of thesaloon-keepers. It was a high favor when the chief saloon-keeperconsented to serve in the legislature or the board of aldermen. 

Youthful ambition hardly aspired so much to the honors of the law, or thearmy and navy as to the dignity of proprietorship in a saloon. 

To be a saloon-keeper and kill a man was to be illustrious. Hence thereader will not be surprised to learn that more than one man was killedin Nevada under hardly the pretext of provocation, so impatient was theslayer to achieve reputation and throw off the galling sense of beingheld in indifferent repute by his associates. I knew two youths whotried to "kill their men" for no other reason--and got killed themselvesfor their pains. "There goes the man that killed Bill Adams" was higherpraise and a sweeter sound in the ears of this sort of people than anyother speech that admiring lips could utter. 

The men who murdered Virginia's original twenty-six cemetery-occupantswere never punished. Why? Because Alfred the Great, when he inventedtrial by jury and knew that he had admirably framed it to secure justicein his age of the world, was not aware that in the nineteenth century thecondition of things would be so entirely changed that unless he rose fromthe grave and altered the jury plan to meet the emergency, it would provethe most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating justice that humanwisdom could contrive. For how could he imagine that we simpletons wouldgo on using his jury plan after circumstances had stripped it of itsusefulness, any more than he could imagine that we would go on using hiscandle-clock after we had invented chronometers? In his day news couldnot travel fast, and hence he could easily find a jury of honest, intelligent men who had not heard of the case they were called to try--but in our day of telegraphs and newspapers his plan compels us to swearin juries composed of fools and rascals, because the system rigidlyexcludes honest men and men of brains. 

I remember one of those sorrowful farces, in Virginia, which we call ajury trial. A noted desperado killed Mr. B. , a good citizen, in the mostwanton and cold-blooded way. Of course the papers were full of it, andall men capable of reading, read about it. And of course all men notdeaf and dumb and idiotic, talked about it. A jury-list was made out, and Mr. B. L. , a prominent banker and a valued citizen, was questionedprecisely as he would have been questioned in any court in America:

"Have you heard of this homicide?"

"Yes. "

"Have you held conversations upon the subject?"

"Yes. "

"Have you formed or expressed opinions about it?"

"Yes. "

"Have you read the newspaper accounts of it?"

"Yes. "

"We do not want you. "

A minister, intelligent, esteemed, and greatly respected; a merchant ofhigh character and known probity; a mining superintendent of intelligenceand unblemished reputation; a quartz mill owner of excellent standing, were all questioned in the same way, and all set aside. Each said thepublic talk and the newspaper reports had not so biased his mind but thatsworn testimony would overthrow his previously formed opinions and enablehim to render a verdict without prejudice and in accordance with thefacts. But of course such men could not be trusted with the case. Ignoramuses alone could mete out unsullied justice. 

When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of twelve menwas impaneled--a jury who swore they had neither heard, read, talkedabout nor expressed an opinion concerning a murder which the very cattlein the corrals, the Indians in the sage-brush and the stones in thestreets were cognizant of! It was a jury composed of two desperadoes, two low beer-house politicians, three bar-keepers, two ranchmen who couldnot read, and three dull, stupid, human donkeys! It actually came outafterward, that one of these latter thought that incest and arson werethe same thing. 

The verdict rendered by this jury was, Not Guilty. What else could oneexpect?

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and a premiumupon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is a shame that we mustcontinue to use a worthless system because it was good a thousand yearsago. In this age, when a gentleman of high social standing, intelligenceand probity, swears that testimony given under solemn oath will outweigh, with him, street talk and newspaper reports based upon mere hearsay, heis worth a hundred jurymen who will swear to their own ignorance andstupidity, and justice would be far safer in his hands than in theirs. Why could not the jury law be so altered as to give men of brains andhonesty and equal chance with fools and miscreants? Is it right to showthe present favoritism to one class of men and inflict a disability onanother, in a land whose boast is that all its citizens are free andequal? I am a candidate for the legislature. I desire to tamper withthe jury law. I wish to so alter it as to put a premium on intelligenceand character, and close the jury box against idiots, blacklegs, andpeople who do not read newspapers. But no doubt I shall be defeated--every effort I make to save the country "misses fire. "

My idea, when I began this chapter, was to say something aboutdesperadoism in the "flush times" of Nevada. To attempt a portrayal ofthat era and that land, and leave out the blood and carnage, would belike portraying Mormondom and leaving out polygamy. The desperadostalked the streets with a swagger graded according to the number of hishomicides, and a nod of recognition from him was sufficient to make ahumble admirer happy for the rest of the day. The deference that waspaid to a desperado of wide reputation, and who "kept his privategraveyard, " as the phrase went, was marked, and cheerfully accorded. When he moved along the sidewalk in his excessively long-tailedfrock-coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hattipped over left eye, the small-fry roughs made room for his majesty;when he entered the restaurant, the waiters deserted bankers andmerchants to overwhelm him with obsequious service; when he shoulderedhis way to a bar, the shouldered parties wheeled indignantly, recognizedhim, and --apologized. 

They got a look in return that froze their marrow, and by that time acurled and breast-pinned bar keeper was beaming over the counter, proudof the established acquaintanceship that permitted such a familiar formof speech as:

"How're ye, Billy, old fel? Glad to see you. What'll you take--the oldthing?"

The "old thing" meant his customary drink, of course. 

The best known names in the Territory of Nevada were those belonging tothese long-tailed heroes of the revolver. Orators, Governors, capitalists and leaders of the legislature enjoyed a degree of fame, butit seemed local and meagre when contrasted with the fame of such men asSam Brown, Jack Williams, Billy Mulligan, Farmer Pease, Sugarfoot Mike, Pock Marked Jake, El Dorado Johnny, Jack McNabb, Joe McGee, Jack Harris, Six-fingered Pete, etc. , etc. There was a long list of them. They werebrave, reckless men, and traveled with their lives in their hands. Togive them their due, they did their killing principally among themselves, and seldom molested peaceable citizens, for they considered it smallcredit to add to their trophies so cheap a bauble as the death of a manwho was "not on the shoot, " as they phrased it. They killed each otheron slight provocation, and hoped and expected to be killed themselves--for they held it almost shame to die otherwise than "with their bootson, " as they expressed it. 

I remember an instance of a desperado's contempt for such small game as aprivate citizen's life. I was taking a late supper in a restaurant onenight, with two reporters and a little printer named--Brown, forinstance--any name will do. Presently a stranger with a long-tailed coaton came in, and not noticing Brown's hat, which was lying in a chair, satdown on it. Little Brown sprang up and became abusive in a moment. Thestranger smiled, smoothed out the hat, and offered it to Brown withprofuse apologies couched in caustic sarcasm, and begged Brown not todestroy him. Brown threw off his coat and challenged the man to fight--abused him, threatened him, impeached his courage, and urged and evenimplored him to fight; and in the meantime the smiling stranger placedhimself under our protection in mock distress. But presently he assumeda serious tone, and said:

"Very well, gentlemen, if we must fight, we must, I suppose. But don'trush into danger and then say I gave you no warning. I am more than amatch for all of you when I get started. I will give you proofs, andthen if my friend here still insists, I will try to accommodate him. "

The table we were sitting at was about five feet long, and unusuallycumbersome and heavy. He asked us to put our hands on the dishes andhold them in their places a moment--one of them was a large oval dishwith a portly roast on it. Then he sat down, tilted up one end of thetable, set two of the legs on his knees, took the end of the tablebetween his teeth, took his hands away, and pulled down with his teethtill the table came up to a level position, dishes and all! He said hecould lift a keg of nails with his teeth. He picked up a common glasstumbler and bit a semi-circle out of it. Then he opened his bosom andshowed us a net-work of knife and bullet scars; showed us more on hisarms and face, and said he believed he had bullets enough in his body tomake a pig of lead. He was armed to the teeth. He closed with theremark that he was Mr. ---- of Cariboo--a celebrated name whereat we shookin our shoes. I would publish the name, but for the suspicion that hemight come and carve me. He finally inquired if Brown still thirsted forblood. Brown turned the thing over in his mind a moment, and then--askedhim to supper. 

With the permission of the reader, I will group together, in the nextchapter, some samples of life in our small mountain village in the olddays of desperadoism. I was there at the time. The reader will observepeculiarities in our official society; and he will observe also, aninstance of how, in new countries, murders breed murders. 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

An extract or two from the newspapers of the day will furnish aphotograph that can need no embellishment:

 FATAL SHOOTING AFFRAY. --An affray occurred, last evening, in a billiard saloon on C street, between Deputy Marshal Jack Williams and Wm. Brown, which resulted in the immediate death of the latter. There had been some difficulty between the parties for several months. 

 An inquest was immediately held, and the following testimony adduced:

 Officer GEO. BIRDSALL, sworn, says:--I was told Wm. Brown was drunk and was looking for Jack Williams; so soon as I heard that I started for the parties to prevent a collision; went into the billiard saloon; saw Billy Brown running around, saying if anybody had anything against him to show cause; he was talking in a boisterous manner, and officer Perry took him to the other end of the room to talk to him; Brown came back to me; remarked to me that he thought he was as good as anybody, and knew how to take care of himself; he passed by me and went to the bar; don't know whether he drank or not; Williams was at the end of the billiard-table, next to the stairway; Brown, after going to the bar, came back and said he was as good as any man in the world; he had then walked out to the end of the first billiard-table from the bar; I moved closer to them, supposing there would be a fight; as Brown drew his pistol I caught hold of it; he had fired one shot at Williams; don't know the effect of it; caught hold of him with one hand, and took hold of the pistol and turned it up; think he fired once after I caught hold of the pistol; I wrenched the pistol from him; walked to the end of the billiard-table and told a party that I had Brown's pistol, and to stop shooting; I think four shots were fired in all; after walking out, Mr. Foster remarked that Brown was shot dead. 

Oh, there was no excitement about it--he merely "remarked" the smallcircumstance!

Four months later the following item appeared in the same paper (theEnterprise). In this item the name of one of the city officers abovereferred to (Deputy Marshal Jack Williams) occurs again:

 ROBBERY AND DESPERATE AFFRAY. --On Tuesday night, a German named Charles Hurtzal, engineer in a mill at Silver City, came to this place, and visited the hurdy-gurdy house on B street. The music, dancing and Teutonic maidens awakened memories of Faderland until our German friend was carried away with rapture. He evidently had money, and was spending if freely. Late in the evening Jack Williams and Andy Blessington invited him down stairs to take a cup of coffee. Williams proposed a game of cards and went up stairs to procure a deck, but not finding any returned. On the stairway he met the German, and drawing his pistol knocked him down and rifled his pockets of some seventy dollars. Hurtzal dared give no alarm, as he was told, with a pistol at his head, if he made any noise or exposed them, they would blow his brains out. So effectually was he frightened that he made no complaint, until his friends forced him. Yesterday a warrant was issued, but the culprits had disappeared. 

This efficient city officer, Jack Williams, had the common reputation ofbeing a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. It was said that he hadseveral times drawn his revolver and levied money contributions oncitizens at dead of night in the public streets of Virginia. 

Five months after the above item appeared, Williams was assassinatedwhile sitting at a card table one night; a gun was thrust through thecrack of the door and Williams dropped from his chair riddled with balls. It was said, at the time, that Williams had been for some time aware thata party of his own sort (desperadoes) had sworn away his life; and it wasgenerally believed among the people that Williams's friends and enemieswould make the assassination memorable--and useful, too--by a wholesaledestruction of each other. 

It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull during the nexttwenty-four hours, for within that time a woman was killed by a pistolshot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and a man named Reeder wasalso disposed of permanently. Some matters in the Enterprise account ofthe killing of Reeder are worth nothing--especially the accommodatingcomplaisance of a Virginia justice of the peace. The italics in thefollowing narrative are mine:

 MORE CUTTING AND SHOOTING. --The devil seems to have again broken loose in our town. Pistols and guns explode and knives gleam in our streets as in early times. When there has been a long season of quiet, people are slow to wet their hands in blood; but once blood is spilled, cutting and shooting come easy. Night before last Jack Williams was assassinated, and yesterday forenoon we had more bloody work, growing out of the killing of Williams, and on the same street in which he met his death. It appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of Williams, and George Gumbert were talking, at the meat market of the latter, about the killing of Williams the previous night, when Reeder said it was a most cowardly act to shoot a man in such a way, giving him "no show. " Gumbert said that Williams had "as good a show as he gave Billy Brown, " meaning the man killed by Williams last March. Reeder said it was a d---d lie, that Williams had no show at all. At this, Gumbert drew a knife and stabbed Reeder, cutting him in two places in the back. One stroke of the knife cut into the sleeve of Reeder's coat and passed downward in a slanting direction through his clothing, and entered his body at the small of the back; another blow struck more squarely, and made a much more dangerous wound. Gumbert gave himself up to the officers of justice, and was shortly after discharged by Justice Atwill, on his own recognizance, to appear for trial at six o'clock in the evening. In the meantime Reeder had been taken into the office of Dr. Owens, where his wounds were properly dressed. One of his wounds was considered quite dangerous, and it was thought by many that it would prove fatal. But being considerably under the influence of liquor, Reeder did not feel his wounds as he otherwise would, and he got up and went into the street. He went to the meat market and renewed his quarrel with Gumbert, threatening his life. Friends tried to interfere to put a stop to the quarrel and get the parties away from each other. In the Fashion Saloon Reeder made threats against the life of Gumbert, saying he would kill him, and it is said that he requested the officers not to arrest Gumbert, as he intended to kill him. After these threats Gumbert went off and procured a double-barreled shot gun, loaded with buck-shot or revolver balls, and went after Reeder. Two or three persons were assisting him along the street, trying to get him home, and had him just in front of the store of Klopstock & Harris, when Gumbert came across toward him from the opposite side of the street with his gun. He came up within about ten or fifteen feet of Reeder, and called out to those with him to "look out! get out of the way!" and they had only time to heed the warning, when he fired. Reeder was at the time attempting to screen himself behind a large cask, which stood against the awning post of Klopstock & Harris's store, but some of the balls took effect in the lower part of his breast, and he reeled around forward and fell in front of the cask. Gumbert then raised his gun and fired the second barrel, which missed Reeder and entered the ground. At the time that this occurred, there were a great many persons on the street in the vicinity, and a number of them called out to Gumbert, when they saw him raise his gun, to "hold on, " and "don't shoot!" The cutting took place about ten o'clock and the shooting about twelve. After the shooting the street was instantly crowded with the inhabitants of that part of the town, some appearing much excited and laughing--declaring that it looked like the "good old times of '60. " Marshal Perry and officer Birdsall were near when the shooting occurred, and Gumbert was immediately arrested and his gun taken from him, when he was marched off to jail. Many persons who were attracted to the spot where this bloody work had just taken place, looked bewildered and seemed to be asking themselves what was to happen next, appearing in doubt as to whether the killing mania had reached its climax, or whether we were to turn in and have a grand killing spell, shooting whoever might have given us offence. It was whispered around that it was not all over yet --five or six more were to be killed before night. Reeder was taken to the Virginia City Hotel, and doctors called in to examine his wounds. They found that two or three balls had entered his right side; one of them appeared to have passed through the substance of the lungs, while another passed into the liver. Two balls were also found to have struck one of his legs. As some of the balls struck the cask, the wounds in Reeder's leg were probably from these, glancing downwards, though they might have been caused by the second shot fired. After being shot, Reeder said when he got on his feet --smiling as he spoke--"It will take better shooting than that to kill me. " The doctors consider it almost impossible for him to recover, but as he has an excellent constitution he may survive, notwithstanding the number and dangerous character of the wounds he has received. The town appears to be perfectly quiet at present, as though the late stormy times had cleared our moral atmosphere; but who can tell in what quarter clouds are lowering or plots ripening?

Reeder--or at least what was left of him--survived his wounds two days!Nothing was ever done with Gumbert. 

Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know what apalladium is, having never seen a palladium, but it is a good thing nodoubt at any rate. Not less than a hundred men have been murdered inNevada--perhaps I would be within bounds if I said three hundred--and asfar as I can learn, only two persons have suffered the death penaltythere. However, four or five who had no money and no political influencehave been punished by imprisonment--one languished in prison as much aseight months, I think. However, I do not desire to be extravagant--itmay have been less. 

However, one prophecy was verified, at any rate. It was asserted by thedesperadoes that one of their brethren (Joe McGee, a special policeman)was known to be the conspirator chosen by lot to assassinate Williams;and they also asserted that doom had been pronounced against McGee, andthat he would be assassinated in exactly the same manner that had beenadopted for the destruction of Williams--a prophecy which came true ayear later. After twelve months of distress (for McGee saw a fanciedassassin in every man that approached him), he made the last of manyefforts to get out of the country unwatched. He went to Carson and satdown in a saloon to wait for the stage--it would leave at four in themorning. But as the night waned and the crowd thinned, he grew uneasy, and told the bar-keeper that assassins were on his track. The bar-keepertold him to stay in the middle of the room, then, and not go near thedoor, or the window by the stove. But a fatal fascination seduced him tothe neighborhood of the stove every now and then, and repeatedly thebar-keeper brought him back to the middle of the room and warned him toremain there. But he could not. At three in the morning he againreturned to the stove and sat down by a stranger. Before the bar-keepercould get to him with another warning whisper, some one outside firedthrough the window and riddled McGee's breast with slugs, killing himalmost instantly. By the same discharge the stranger at McGee's sidealso received attentions which proved fatal in the course of two or threedays. 

CHAPTER L. 

These murder and jury statistics remind me of a certain veryextraordinary trial and execution of twenty years ago; it is a scrap ofhistory familiar to all old Californians, and worthy to be known by otherpeoples of the earth that love simple, straightforward justiceunencumbered with nonsense. I would apologize for this digression butfor the fact that the information I am about to offer is apology enoughin itself. And since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is as wellto eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their growing irksome. 

Capt. Ned Blakely--that name will answer as well as any other fictitiousone (for he was still with the living at last accounts, and may notdesire to be famous)--sailed ships out of the harbor of San Francisco formany years. He was a stalwart, warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who hadbeen a sailor nearly fifty years--a sailor from early boyhood. He was arough, honest creature, full of pluck, and just as full of hard-headedsimplicity, too. He hated trifling conventionalities--"business" was theword, with him. He had all a sailor's vindictiveness against the quipsand quirks of the law, and steadfastly believed that the first and lastaim and object of the law and lawyers was to defeat justice. 

He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of a guano ship. He had afine crew, but his negro mate was his pet--on him he had for yearslavished his admiration and esteem. It was Capt. Ned's first voyage tothe Chinchas, but his fame had gone before him--the fame of being a manwho would fight at the dropping of a handkerchief, when imposed upon, andwould stand no nonsense. It was a fame well earned. Arrived in theislands, he found that the staple of conversation was the exploits of oneBill Noakes, a bully, the mate of a trading ship. This man had created asmall reign of terror there. At nine o'clock at night, Capt. Ned, allalone, was pacing his deck in the starlight. A form ascended the side, and approached him. Capt. Ned said:

"Who goes there?"

"I'm Bill Noakes, the best man in the islands. "

"What do you want aboard this ship?"

"I've heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us is a better man than'tother--I'll know which, before I go ashore. "

"You've come to the right shop--I'm your man. I'll learn you to comeaboard this ship without an invite. "

He seized Noakes, backed him against the mainmast, pounded his face to apulp, and then threw him overboard. 

Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next night, got the pulprenewed, and went overboard head first, as before. 

He was satisfied. 

A week after this, while Noakes was carousing with a sailor crowd onshore, at noonday, Capt. Ned's colored mate came along, and Noakes triedto pick a quarrel with him. The negro evaded the trap, and tried to getaway. Noakes followed him up; the negro began to run; Noakes fired onhim with a revolver and killed him. Half a dozen sea-captains witnessedthe whole affair. Noakes retreated to the small after-cabin of his ship, with two other bullies, and gave out that death would be the portion ofany man that intruded there. There was no attempt made to follow thevillains; there was no disposition to do it, and indeed very littlethought of such an enterprise. There were no courts and no officers;there was no government; the islands belonged to Peru, and Peru was faraway; she had no official representative on the ground; and neither hadany other nation. 

However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head about such things. Theyconcerned him not. He was boiling with rage and furious for justice. At nine o'clock at night he loaded a double-barreled gun with slugs, fished out a pair of handcuffs, got a ship's lantern, summoned hisquartermaster, and went ashore. He said:

"Do you see that ship there at the dock?"

"Ay-ay, sir. "

"It's the Venus. "

"Ay-ay, sir. "

"You--you know me. "

"Ay-ay, sir. "

"Very well, then. Take the lantern. Carry it just under your chin. I'll walk behind you and rest this gun-barrel on your shoulder, p'intingforward--so. Keep your lantern well up so's I can see things ahead ofyou good. I'm going to march in on Noakes--and take him--and jug theother chaps. If you flinch--well, you know me. "

"Ay-ay, sir. "

In this order they filed aboard softly, arrived at Noakes's den, thequartermaster pushed the door open, and the lantern revealed the threedesperadoes sitting on the floor. Capt. Ned said:

"I'm Ned Blakely. I've got you under fire. Don't you move withoutorders--any of you. You two kneel down in the corner; faces to the wall--now. Bill Noakes, put these handcuffs on; now come up close. Quartermaster, fasten 'em. All right. Don't stir, sir. Quartermaster, put the key in the outside of the door. Now, men, I'm going to lock youtwo in; and if you try to burst through this door--well, you've heard ofme. Bill Noakes, fall in ahead, and march. All set. Quartermaster, lock the door. "

Noakes spent the night on board Blakely's ship, a prisoner under strictguard. Early in the morning Capt. Ned called in all the sea-captains inthe harbor and invited them, with nautical ceremony, to be present onboard his ship at nine o'clock to witness the hanging of Noakes at theyard-arm!

"What! The man has not been tried. "

"Of course he hasn't. But didn't he kill the nigger?"

"Certainly he did; but you are not thinking of hanging him without atrial?"

"Trial! What do I want to try him for, if he killed the nigger?"

"Oh, Capt. Ned, this will never do. Think how it will sound. "

"Sound be hanged! Didn't he kill the nigger?"

"Certainly, certainly, Capt. Ned, --nobody denies that, --but--"

"Then I'm going to hang him, that's all. Everybody I've talked to talksjust the same way you do. Everybody says he killed the nigger, everybodyknows he killed the nigger, and yet every lubber of you wants him triedfor it. I don't understand such bloody foolishness as that. Tried!Mind you, I don't object to trying him, if it's got to be done to givesatisfaction; and I'll be there, and chip in and help, too; but put itoff till afternoon--put it off till afternoon, for I'll have my handsmiddling full till after the burying--"

"Why, what do you mean? Are you going to hang him any how--and try himafterward?"

"Didn't I say I was going to hang him? I never saw such people as you. What's the difference? You ask a favor, and then you ain't satisfiedwhen you get it. Before or after's all one--you know how the trial willgo. He killed the nigger. Say--I must be going. If your mate wouldlike to come to the hanging, fetch him along. I like him. "

There was a stir in the camp. The captains came in a body and pleadedwith Capt. Ned not to do this rash thing. They promised that they wouldcreate a court composed of captains of the best character; they wouldempanel a jury; they would conduct everything in a way becoming theserious nature of the business in hand, and give the case an impartialhearing and the accused a fair trial. And they said it would be murder, and punishable by the American courts if he persisted and hung theaccused on his ship. They pleaded hard. Capt. Ned said:

"Gentlemen, I'm not stubborn and I'm not unreasonable. I'm alwayswilling to do just as near right as I can. How long will it take?"

"Probably only a little while. "

"And can I take him up the shore and hang him as soon as you are done?"

"If he is proven guilty he shall be hanged without unnecessary delay. "

"If he's proven guilty. Great Neptune, ain't he guilty? This beats mytime. Why you all know he's guilty. "

But at last they satisfied him that they were projecting nothingunderhanded. Then he said:

"Well, all right. You go on and try him and I'll go down and overhaulhis conscience and prepare him to go--like enough he needs it, and Idon't want to send him off without a show for hereafter. "

This was another obstacle. They finally convinced him that it wasnecessary to have the accused in court. Then they said they would send aguard to bring him. 

"No, sir, I prefer to fetch him myself--he don't get out of my hands. Besides, I've got to go to the ship to get a rope, anyway. "

The court assembled with due ceremony, empaneled a jury, and presentlyCapt. Ned entered, leading the prisoner with one hand and carrying aBible and a rope in the other. He seated himself by the side of hiscaptive and told the court to "up anchor and make sail. " Then he turneda searching eye on the jury, and detected Noakes's friends, the twobullies. 

He strode over and said to them confidentially:

"You're here to interfere, you see. Now you vote right, do you hear?--orelse there'll be a double-barreled inquest here when this trial's off, and your remainders will go home in a couple of baskets. "

The caution was not without fruit. The jury was a unit--the verdict. "Guilty. "

Capt. Ned sprung to his feet and said:

"Come along--you're my meat now, my lad, anyway. Gentlemen you've doneyourselves proud. I invite you all to come and see that I do it allstraight. Follow me to the canyon, a mile above here. "

The court informed him that a sheriff had been appointed to do thehanging, and--

Capt. Ned's patience was at an end. His wrath was boundless. Thesubject of a sheriff was judiciously dropped. 

When the crowd arrived at the canyon, Capt. Ned climbed a tree andarranged the halter, then came down and noosed his man. He opened hisBible, and laid aside his hat. Selecting a chapter at random, he read itthrough, in a deep bass voice and with sincere solemnity. Then he said:

"Lad, you are about to go aloft and give an account of yourself; and thelighter a man's manifest is, as far as sin's concerned, the better forhim. Make a clean breast, man, and carry a log with you that'll bearinspection. You killed the nigger?"

No reply. A long pause. 

The captain read another chapter, pausing, from time to time, to impressthe effect. Then he talked an earnest, persuasive sermon to him, andended by repeating the question:

"Did you kill the nigger?"

No reply--other than a malignant scowl. The captain now read the firstand second chapters of Genesis, with deep feeling--paused a moment, closed the book reverently, and said with a perceptible savor ofsatisfaction:

"There. Four chapters. There's few that would have took the pains withyou that I have. "

Then he swung up the condemned, and made the rope fast; stood by andtimed him half an hour with his watch, and then delivered the body to thecourt. A little after, as he stood contemplating the motionless figure, a doubt came into his face; evidently he felt a twinge of conscience--amisgiving--and he said with a sigh:

"Well, p'raps I ought to burnt him, maybe. But I was trying to do forthe best. "

When the history of this affair reached California (it was in the "earlydays") it made a deal of talk, but did not diminish the captain'spopularity in any degree. It increased it, indeed. California had apopulation then that "inflicted" justice after a fashion that wassimplicity and primitiveness itself, and could therefore admireappreciatively when the same fashion was followed elsewhere.