Roughing It E-Book

Mark Twain

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 832

Beschreibung

Humorous travelogue of trip to the "wild west". According to Wikipedia: "Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 – 1910), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is extensively quoted. During his lifetime, Twain became a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists and European royalty. Twain enjoyed immense public popularity, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. American author William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature."

Leseprobe

Roughing It By Mark Twain

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

Travel books by Mark Twain:

The Innocents Abroad

Roughing It

Life on the Mississippi

A Tramp Abroad

Following the Equator

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visit us at samizdat.com

TO CALVIN H. HIGBIE, Of California,  an Honest Man, a Genial Comrade, and a Steadfast Friend. THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED By the Author, In Memory of the Curious Time When We Two WERE MILLIONAIRES FOR TEN DAYS.

PREFATORY

CHAPTER I. My Brother appointed Secretary of Nevada--I Envy His Prospective Adventures--Am Appointed Private Secretary Under Him--My Contentment Complete--Packed in One Hour--Dreams and Visions--On the Missouri River-- A Bully Boat

CHAPTER II. Arrive at St. Joseph--Only Twenty-five Pounds Baggage Allowed--Farewell to Kid Gloves and Dress Coats--Armed to the Teeth--The "Allen"--A Cheerful Weapon--Persuaded to Buy a Mule--Schedule of Luxuries--We Leave the "States"--"Our Coach"--Mails for the Indians--Between a Wink and an Earthquake--A Modern Sphynx and How She Entertained Us--A Sociable Heifer

CHAPTER III. "The Thoroughbrace is Broke"--Mails Delivered Properly--Sleeping Under Difficulties--A Jackass Rabbit Meditating, and on Business--A Modern Gulliver--Sage-brush--Overcoats as an Article of Diet--Sad Fate of a Camel--Warning to Experimenters

CHAPTER IV. Making Our Bed--Assaults by the Unabridged--At a Station--Our Driver a Great and Shining Dignitary--Strange Place for a Frontyard-- Accommodations--Double Portraits--An Heirloom--Our Worthy Landlord-- "Fixings and Things"--An Exile--Slumgullion--A Well Furnished Table--The Landlord Astonished--Table Etiquette--Wild Mexican Mules--Stage-coaching and Railroading

CHAPTER V. New Acquaintances--The Cayote--A Dog's Experiences--A Disgusted Dog--The Relatives of the Cayote--Meals Taken Away from Home

CHAPTER VI. The Division Superintendent--The Conductor--The Driver--One Hundred and Fifty Miles' Drive Without Sleep--Teaching a Subordinate--Our Old Friend Jack and a Pilgrim--Ben Holliday Compared to Moses

CHAPTER VII. Overland City--Crossing the Platte--Bemis's Buffalo Hunt--Assault by a Buffalo--Bemis's Horse Goes Crazy--An Impromptu Circus--A New Departure-- Bemis Finds Refuge in a Tree--Escapes Finally by a Wonderful Method

CHAPTER VIII. The Pony Express--Fifty Miles Without Stopping--"Here he Comes"--Alkali Water--Riding an Avalanche--Indian Massacre

CHAPTER IX. Among the Indians--An Unfair Advantage--Laying on our Arms--A Midnight Murder--Wrath of Outlaws--A Dangerous, yet Valuable Citizen

CHAPTER X. History of Slade--A Proposed Fist-fight--Encounter with Jules--Paradise of Outlaws--Slade as Superintendent--As Executioner--A Doomed Whisky Seller--A Prisoner--A Wife's Bravery--An Ancient Enemy Captured--Enjoying a Luxury--Hob-nobbing with Slade--Too Polite--A Happy Escape

CHAPTER XI. Slade in Montana--"On a Spree"--In Court--Attack on a Judge--Arrest by the Vigilantes--Turn out of the Miners--Execution of Slade--Lamentations of His Wife--Was Slade a Coward?

CHAPTER XII. A Mormon Emigrant Train--The Heart of the Rocky Mountains--Pure Saleratus--A Natural Ice-House--An Entire Inhabitant--In Sight of "Eternal Snow"--The South Pass--The Parting Streams--An Unreliable Letter Carrier--Meeting of Old Friends--A Spoiled Watermelon--Down the Mountain--A Scene of Desolation--Lost in the Dark--Unnecessary Advice--U.S. Troops and Indians--Sublime Spectacle--Another Delusion Dispelled--Among the Angels

CHAPTER XIII. Mormons and Gentiles--Exhilarating Drink, and its Effect on Bemis--Salt Lake City--A Great Contrast--A Mormon Vagrant--Talk with a Saint--A Visit to the "King"--A Happy Simile

CHAPTER XIV. Mormon Contractors--How Mr. Street Astonished Them--The Case Before Brigham Young, and How he Disposed of it--Polygamy Viewed from a New Position

CHAPTER XV. A Gentile Den--Polygamy Discussed--Favorite Wife and D. 4--Hennery for Retired Wives--Children Need Marking--Cost of a Gift to No. 6--A Penny- whistle Gift and its Effects--Fathering the Foundlings--It Resembled Him --The Family Bedstead

CHAPTER XVI The Mormon Bible--Proofs of its Divinity--Plagiarism of its Authors-- Story of Nephi--Wonderful Battle--Kilkenny Cats Outdone

CHAPTER XVII. Three Sides to all Questions--Everything "A Quarter"--Shriveled Up-- Emigrants and White Shirts at a Discount--"Forty-Niners"--Above Par--Real Happiness

CHAPTER XVIII. Alkali Desert--Romance of Crossing Dispelled--Alkali Dust--Effect on the Mules--Universal Thanksgiving

CHAPTER XIX. The Digger Indians Compared with the Bushmen of Africa--Food, Life and Characteristics--Cowardly Attack on a Stage Coach--A Brave Driver--The Noble Red Man

CHAPTER XX. The Great American Desert--Forty Miles on Bones--Lakes Without Outlets-- Greely's Remarkable Ride--Hank Monk, the Renowned Driver--Fatal Effects of "Corking" a Story--Bald-Headed Anecdote

CHAPTER XXI. Alkali Dust--Desolation and Contemplation--Carson City--Our Journey Ended--We are Introduced to Several Citizens--A Strange Rebuke--A Washoe Zephyr at Play--Its Office Hours--Governor's Palace--Government Offices-- Our French Landlady Bridget O'Flannigan--Shadow Secrets--Cause for a Disturbance at Once--The Irish Brigade--Mrs. O'Flannigan's Boarders--The Surveying Expedition--Escape of the Tarantulas

CHAPTER XXII. The Son of a Nabob--Start for Lake Tahoe--Splendor of the Views--Trip on the Lake--Camping Out--Reinvigorating Climate--Clearing a Tract of Land-- Securing a Title--Outhouse and Fences

CHAPTER XXIII. A Happy Life--Lake Tahoe and its Moods--Transparency of the Waters--A Catastrophe--Fire! Fire!--A Magnificent Spectacle--Homeless Again--We take to the Lake--A Storm--Return to Carson

CHAPTER XXIV. Resolve to Buy a Horse--Horsemanship in Carson--A Temptation--Advice Given Me Freely--I Buy the Mexican Plug--My First Ride--A Good Bucker--I Loan the Plug--Experience of Borrowers--Attempts to Sell--Expense of the Experiment--A Stranger Taken In

CHAPTER XXV. The Mormons in Nevada--How to Persuade a Loan from Them--Early History of the Territory--Silver Mines Discovered--The New Territorial Government--A Foreign One and a Poor One--Its Funny Struggles for Existence--No Credit, no Cash--Old Abe Currey Sustains it and its Officers--Instructions and Vouchers--An Indian's Endorsement--Toll-Gates

CHAPTER XXVI. The Silver Fever--State of the Market--Silver Bricks--Tales Told--Off for the Humboldt Mines

CHAPTER XXVII. Our manner of going--Incidents of the Trip--A Warm but Too Familiar a Bedfellow--Mr. Ballou Objects--Sunshine amid Clouds--Safely Arrived

CHAPTER XXVIII. Arrive at the Mountains--Building Our Cabin--My First Prospecting Tour-- My First Gold Mine--Pockets Filled With Treasures--Filtering the News to My Companions--The Bubble Pricked--All Not Gold That Glitters

CHAPTER XXIX. Out Prospecting--A Silver Mine At Last--Making a Fortune With Sledge and Drill--A Hard Road to Travel--We Own in Claims--A Rocky Country

CHAPTER XXX. Disinterested Friends--How "Feet" Were Sold--We Quit Tunnelling--A Trip to Esmeralda--My Companions--An Indian Prophesy--A Flood--Our Quarters During It

CHAPTER XXXI. The Guests at "Honey Lake Smith's"--"Bully Old Arkansas"--"Our Landlord"- -Determined to Fight--The Landlord's Wife--The Bully Conquered by Her-- Another Start--Crossing the Carson--A Narrow Escape--Following Our Own Track--A New Guide--Lost in the Snow

CHAPTER XXXII. Desperate Situation--Attempts to Make a Fire--Our Horses leave us--We Find Matches--One, Two, Three and the Last--No Fire--Death Seems Inevitable--We Mourn Over Our Evil Lives--Discarded Vices--We Forgive Each Other--An Affectionate Farewell--The Sleep of Oblivion

CHAPTER XXXIII. Return of Consciousness--Ridiculous Developments--A Station House--Bitter Feelings--Fruits of Repentance--Resurrected Vices

CHAPTER XXXIV. About Carson--General Buncombe--Hyde vs. Morgan--How Hyde Lost His Ranch- -The Great Landslide Case--The Trial--General Buncombe in Court--A Wonderful Decision--A Serious Afterthought

CHAPTER XXXV. A New Travelling Companion--All Full and No Accommodations--How Captain Nye found Room--and Caused Our Leaving to be Lamented--The Uses of Tunnelling--A Notable Example--We Go into the "Claim" Business and Fail-- At the Bottom

CHAPTER XXXVI. A Quartz Mill--Amalgamation--"Screening Tailings"--First Quartz Mill in Nevada--Fire Assay--A Smart Assayer--I stake for an advance

CHAPTER XXXVII. The Whiteman Cement Mine--Story of its Discovery--A Secret Expedition--A Nocturnal Adventure--A Distressing Position--A Failure and a Week's Holiday

CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mono Lake--Shampooing Made Easy--Thoughtless Act of Our Dog and the Results--Lye Water--Curiosities of the Lake--Free Hotel--Some Funny Incidents a Little Overdrawn

CHAPTER XXXIX. Visit to the Islands in Lake Mono--Ashes and Desolation--Life Amid Death Our Boat Adrift--A Jump For Life--A Storm On the Lake--A Mass of Soap Suds--Geological Curiosities--A Week On the Sierras--A Narrow Escape From a Funny Explosion--"Stove Heap Gone"

CHAPTER XL. The "Wide West" Mine--It is "Interviewed" by Higbie--A Blind Lead--Worth a Million--We are Rich At Last--Plans for the Future

CHAPTER XLI. A Rheumatic Patient--Day Dreams--An Unfortunate Stumble--I Leave Suddenly--Another Patient--Higbie in the Cabin--Our Balloon Bursted-- Worth Nothing--Regrets and Explanations--Our Third Partner

CHAPTER XLII. What to do Next?--Obstacles I Had Met With--"Jack of All Trades"--Mining Again--Target Shooting--I Turn City Editor--I Succeed Finely

CHAPTER XLIII. My Friend Boggs--The School Report--Boggs Pays Me An Old Debt--Virginia City

CHAPTER XLIV. Flush Times--Plenty of Stock--Editorial Puffing--Stocks Given Me--Salting Mines--A Tragedian In a New Role

CHAPTER XLV. Flush Times Continue--Sanitary Commission Fund--Wild Enthusiasm of the People--Would not wait to Contribute--The Sanitary Flour Sack--It is Carried to Gold Hill and Dayton--Final Reception in Virginia--Results of the Sale--A Grand Total

CHAPTER XLVI. The Nabobs of Those Days--John Smith as a Traveler--Sudden Wealth--A Sixty-Thousand-Dollar Horse--A Smart Telegraph Operator--A Nabob in New York City--Charters an Omnibus--"Walk in, It's All Free"--"You Can't Pay a Cent"--"Hold On, Driver, I Weaken"--Sociability of New Yorkers"

CHAPTER XLVII. Buck Fanshaw's Death--The Cause Thereof--Preparations for His Burial-- Scotty Briggs the Committee Man--He Visits the Minister--Scotty Can't Play His Hand--The Minister Gets Mixed--Both Begin to See--"All Down Again But Nine"--Buck Fanshaw as a Citizen--How To "Shook Your Mother"-- The Funeral--Scotty Briggs as a Sunday School Teacher

CHAPTER XLVIII. The First Twenty-Six Graves in Nevada--The Prominent Men of the County-- The Man Who Had Killed His Dozen--Trial by Jury--Specimen Jurors--A Private Grave Yard--The Desperadoes--Who They Killed--Waking up the Weary Passenger--Satisfaction Without Fighting

CHAPTER XLIX. Fatal Shooting Affray--Robbery and Desperate Affray--A Specimen City Official--A Marked Man--A Street Fight--Punishment of Crime

CHAPTER L. Captain Ned Blakely--Bill Nookes Receives Desired Information--Killing of Blakely's Mate--A Walking Battery--Blakely Secures Nookes--Hang First and Be Tried Afterwards--Captain Blakely as a Chaplain--The First Chapter of Genesis Read at a Hanging--Nookes Hung--Blakely's Regrets

CHAPTER LI. The Weekly Occidental--A Ready Editor--A Novel--A Concentration of Talent--The Heroes and the Heroines--The Dissolute Author Engaged-- Extraordinary Havoc With the Novel--A Highly Romantic Chapter--The Lovers Separated--Jonah Out-done--A Lost Poem--The Aged Pilot Man--Storm On the Erie Canal--Dollinger the Pilot Man--Terrific Gale--Danger Increases--A Crisis Arrived--Saved as if by a Miracle

CHAPTER LII. Freights to California--Silver Bricks--Under Ground Mines--Timber

 Supports--A Visit to the Mines--The Caved Mines--Total of Shipments in 1863

CHAPTER LIII. Jim Blaine and his Grandfather's Ram--Filkin's Mistake--Old Miss Wagner and her Glass Eye--Jacobs, the Coffin Dealer--Waiting for a Customer--His Bargain With Old Robbins--Robbins Sues for Damage and Collects--A New Use for Missionaries--The Effect--His Uncle Lem. and the Use Providence Made of Him--Sad Fate of Wheeler--Devotion of His Wife--A Model Monument--What About the Ram?

CHAPTER LIV. Chinese in Virginia City--Washing Bills--Habit of Imitation--Chinese Immigration--A Visit to Chinatown--Messrs. Ah Sing, Hong Wo, See Yup, &c.

CHAPTER LV. Tired of Virginia City--An Old Schoolmate--A Two Years' Loan--Acting as an Editor--Almost Receive an Offer--An Accident--Three Drunken Anecdotes --Last Look at Mt. Davidson--A Beautiful Incident

CHAPTER LVI. Off for San Francisco--Western and Eastern Landscapes--The Hottest place on Earth--Summer and Winter

CHAPTER LVII. California--Novelty of Seeing a Woman--"Well if it ain't a Child!"--One Hundred and Fifty Dollars for a Kiss--Waiting for a turn

CHAPTER LVIII. Life in San Francisco--Worthless Stocks--My First Earthquake--Reportorial Instincts--Effects of the Shocks--Incidents and Curiosities--Sabbath Breakers--The Lodger and the Chambermaid--A Sensible Fashion to Follow-- Effects of the Earthquake on the Ministers

CHAPTER LIX. Poor Again--Slinking as a Business--A Model Collector--Misery loves Company--Comparing Notes for Comfort--A Streak of Luck--Finding a Dime-- Wealthy by Comparison--Two Sumptuous Dinners

CHAPTER LX. An Old Friend--An Educated Miner--Pocket Mining--Freaks of Fortune

CHAPTER LXI. Dick Baker and his Cat--Tom Quartz's Peculiarities--On an Excursion-- Appearance On His Return--A Prejudiced Cat--Empty Pockets and a Roving Life

CHAPTER LXII. Bound for the Sandwich Islands--The Three Captains--The Old Admiral--His Daily Habits--His Well Fought Fields--An Unexpected Opponent--The Admiral Overpowered--The Victor Declared a Hero

CHAPTER LXIII. Arrival at the Islands--Honolulu--What I Saw There--Dress and Habits of the Inhabitants--The Animal Kingdom--Fruits and Delightful Effects

CHAPTER LXIV. An Excursion--Captain Phillips and his Turn-Out--A Horseback Ride--A Vicious Animal--Nature and Art--Interesting Ruins--All Praise to the Missionaries

CHAPTER LXV. Interesting Mementoes and Relics--An Old Legend of a Frightful Leap--An Appreciative Horse--Horse Jockeys and Their Brothers--A New Trick--A Hay Merchant--Good Country for Horse Lovers

CHAPTER LXVI. A Saturday Afternoon--Sandwich Island Girls on a Frolic--The Poi Merchant--Grand Gala Day--A Native Dance--Church Membership--Cats and Officials--An Overwhelming Discovery

CHAPTER LXVII. The Legislature of the Island--What Its President Has Seen--Praying for an Enemy--Women's Rights--Romantic Fashions--Worship of the Shark--Desire for Dress--Full Dress--Not Paris Style--Playing Empire--Officials and Foreign Ambassadors--Overwhelming Magnificence

CHAPTER LXVIII. A Royal Funeral--Order of Procession--Pomp and Ceremony--A Striking Contrast--A Sick Monarch--Human Sacrifices at His Death--Burial Orgies

CHAPTER LXIX. "Once more upon the Waters."--A Noisy Passenger--Several Silent Ones--A Moonlight Scene--Fruits and Plantations

CHAPTER LXX. A Droll Character--Mrs. Beazely and Her Son--Meditations on Turnips--A Letter from Horace Greeley--An Indignant Rejoinder--The Letter Translated but too Late

CHAPTER LXXI. Kealakekua Bay--Death of Captain Cook--His Monument--Its Construction--On Board the Schooner

CHAPTER LXXII. Young Kanakas in New England--A Temple Built by Ghosts--Female Bathers--I Stood Guard--Women and Whiskey--A Fight for Religion--Arrival of Missionaries

CHAPTER LXXIII. Native Canoes--Surf Bathing--A Sanctuary--How Built--The Queen's Rock-- Curiosities--Petrified Lava

CHAPTER LXXIV. Visit to the Volcano--The Crater--Pillar of Fire--Magnificent Spectacle-- A Lake of Fire

CHAPTER LXXV. The North Lake--Fountains of Fire--Streams of Burning Lava--Tidal Waves

CHAPTER LXXVI. A Reminiscence--Another Horse Story--My Ride with the Retired Milk Horse- -A Picnicing Excursion--Dead Volcano of Holeakala--Comparison with Vesuvius--An Inside View

CHAPTER LXXVII. A Curious Character--A Series of Stories--Sad Fate of a Liar--Evidence of Insanity

CHAPTER LXXVIII. Return to San Francisco--Ship Amusements--Preparing for Lecturing-- Valuable Assistance Secured--My First Attempt--The Audience Carried-- "All's Well that Ends Well."

CHAPTER LXXIX. Highwaymen--A Predicament--A Huge Joke--Farewell to California--At Home Again--Great Changes.  Moral.

APPENDIX. A.--Brief Sketch of Mormon History B.--The Mountain Meadows Massacre C.--Concerning a Frightful Assassination that was never Consummated

PREFATORY.

This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about which no books have been written by persons who were on the ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmination of the silver-mining fever in Nevada -a curious episode, in some respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has occurred in the land; and the only one, indeed, that is likely to occur in it.

Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not justification.

THE AUTHOR.

 CHAPTER I.

My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory--an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence.  A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary," gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur.  I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother.  I coveted his distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the curious new world he was going to explore.  He was going to travel!  I never had been away from home, and that word "travel" had a seductive charm for me.  Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes and Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero.  And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside.  And by and by he would become very rich, and return home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and the ocean, and "the isthmus" as if it was nothing of any consequence to have seen those marvels face to face.  What I suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe.  And so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of private secretary under him, it appeared to me that the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament was rolled together as a scroll!  I had nothing more to desire.  My contentment was complete.

At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey.  Not much packing up was necessary, because we were going in the overland stage from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only allowed a small quantity of baggage apiece.  There was no Pacific railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve years ago--not a single rail of it. I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months--I had no thought of staying longer than that.  I meant to see all I could that was new and strange, and then hurry home to business.  I little thought that I would not see the end of that three-month pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years!

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

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

In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow--climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long.  The captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was more "shear" and a bigger wheel.  I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to say so.

 CHAPTER II.

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

The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty breakfast, and hurried to the starting-place.  Then an inconvenience presented itself which we had not properly appreciated before, namely, that one cannot make a heavy traveling trunk stand for twenty-five pounds of baggage-- because it weighs a good deal more.  But that was all we could take-- twenty-five pounds each.  So we had to snatch our trunks open, and make a selection in a good deal of a hurry.  We put our lawful twenty-five pounds apiece all in one valise, and shipped the trunks back to St. Louis again.  It was a sad parting, for now we had no swallow-tail coats and white kid gloves to wear at Pawnee receptions in the Rocky Mountains, and no stove-pipe hats nor patent-leather boots, nor anything else necessary to make life calm and peaceful.  We were reduced to a war-footing.  Each of us put on a rough, heavy suit of clothing, woolen army shirt and "stogy" boots included; and into the valise we crowded a few white shirts, some under-clothing and such things.  My brother, the Secretary, took along about four pounds of United States statutes and six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary; for we did not know--poor innocents--that such things could be bought in San Francisco on one day and received in Carson City the next.  I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson's seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homoeopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult.  But I thought it was grand.  It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon.  It only had one fault--you could not hit anything with it.  One of our "conductors" practiced awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and behaved herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving about, and he got to shooting at other things, she came to grief.  The Secretary had a small-sized Colt's revolver strapped around him for protection against the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it uncapped.  Mr. George Bemis was dismally formidable.  George Bemis was our fellow-traveler.

We had never seen him before.  He wore in his belt an old original "Allen" revolver, such as irreverent people called a "pepper-box." Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol.  As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an "Allen" in the world.  But George's was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers afterward said, "If she didn't get what she went after, she would fetch something else." And so she did.  She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it.  Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow.  It was a cheerful weapon--the "Allen." Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it.

We took two or three blankets for protection against frosty weather in the mountains.  In the matter of luxuries we were modest--we took none along but some pipes and five pounds of smoking tobacco.  We had two large canteens to carry water in, between stations on the Plains, and we also took with us a little shot-bag of silver coin for daily expenses in the way of breakfasts and dinners.

By eight o'clock everything was ready, and we were on the other side of the river.  We jumped into the stage, the driver cracked his whip, and we bowled away and left "the States" behind us.  It was a superb summer morning, and all the landscape was brilliant with sunshine.  There was a freshness and breeziness, too, and an exhilarating sense of emancipation from all sorts of cares and responsibilities, that almost made us feel that the years we had spent in the close, hot city, toiling and slaving, had been wasted and thrown away.  We were spinning along through Kansas, and in the course of an hour and a half we were fairly abroad on the great Plains.  Just here the land was rolling--a grand sweep of regular elevations and depressions as far as the eye could reach--like the stately heave and swell of the ocean's bosom after a storm.  And everywhere were cornfields, accenting with squares of deeper green, this limitless expanse of grassy land.  But presently this sea upon dry ground was to lose its "rolling" character and stretch away for seven hundred miles as level as a floor!

Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage, of the most sumptuous description--an imposing cradle on wheels.  It was drawn by six handsome horses, and by the side of the driver sat the "conductor," the legitimate captain of the craft; for it was his business to take charge and care of the mails, baggage, express matter, and passengers.  We three were the only passengers, this trip.  We sat on the back seat, inside.  About all the rest of the coach was full of mail bags--for we had three days' delayed mails with us.  Almost touching our knees, a perpendicular wall of mail matter rose up to the roof.  There was a great pile of it strapped on top of the stage, and both the fore and hind boots were full. We had twenty-seven hundred pounds of it aboard, the driver said--"a little for Brigham, and Carson, and 'Frisco, but the heft of it for the Injuns, which is powerful troublesome 'thout they get plenty of truck to read." But as he just then got up a fearful convulsion of his countenance which was suggestive of a wink being swallowed by an earthquake, we guessed that his remark was intended to be facetious, and to mean that we would unload the most of our mail matter somewhere on the Plains and leave it to the Indians, or whosoever wanted it.

We changed horses every ten miles, all day long, and fairly flew over the hard, level road.  We jumped out and stretched our legs every time the coach stopped, and so the night found us still vivacious and unfatigued.

After supper a woman got in, who lived about fifty miles further on, and we three had to take turns at sitting outside with the driver and conductor.  Apparently she was not a talkative woman.  She would sit there in the gathering twilight and fasten her steadfast eyes on a mosquito rooting into her arm, and slowly she would raise her other hand till she had got his range, and then she would launch a slap at him that would have jolted a cow; and after that she would sit and contemplate the corpse with tranquil satisfaction--for she never missed her mosquito; she was a dead shot at short range.  She never removed a carcase, but left them there for bait.  I sat by this grim Sphynx and watched her kill thirty or forty mosquitoes--watched her, and waited for her to say something, but she never did.  So I finally opened the conversation myself.  I said:

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

"You bet!"

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

"You BET!"

Then she cheered up, and faced around and said:

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

The Sphynx was a Sphynx no more!  The fountains of her great deep were broken up, and she rained the nine parts of speech forty days and forty nights, metaphorically speaking, and buried us under a desolating deluge of trivial gossip that left not a crag or pinnacle of rejoinder projecting above the tossing waste of dislocated grammar and decomposed pronunciation!

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

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

We resolved not to "lay by at Cottonwood."

 CHAPTER III.

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

"By George, the thoroughbrace is broke!"

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

Just then the conductor's face appeared at a lifted curtain, and his lantern glared in on us and our wall of mail matter.  He said: "Gents, you'll have to turn out a spell.  Thoroughbrace is broke."

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

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

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

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

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

It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped legs full length on the mail sacks, and gazed out through the windows across the wide wastes of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to where there was an expectant look in the eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the form of a tranquil and contented ecstasy.  The stage whirled along at a spanking gait, the breeze flapping curtains and suspended coats in a most exhilarating way; the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the pattering of the horses' hoofs, the cracking of the driver's whip, and his "Hi-yi! g'lang!" were music; the spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared to give us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up and look after us with interest, or envy, or something; and as we lay and smoked the pipe of peace and compared all this luxury with the years of tiresome city life that had gone before it, we felt that there was only one complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and we had found it.

After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgotten, we three climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and let the conductor have our bed for a nap.  And by and by, when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on my face on top of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept for an hour or more.  That will give one an appreciable idea of those matchless roads.  Instinct will make a sleeping man grip a fast hold of the railing when the stage jolts, but when it only swings and sways, no grip is necessary.  Overland drivers and conductors used to sit in their places and sleep thirty or forty minutes at a time, on good roads, while spinning along at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour.  I saw them do

 it, often.  There was no danger about it; a sleeping man will seize the irons in time when the coach jolts.  These men were hard worked, and it was not possible for them to stay awake all the time.

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

As the sun was going down, we saw the first specimen of an animal known familiarly over two thousand miles of mountain and desert--from Kansas clear to the Pacific Ocean--as the "jackass rabbit." He is well named. He is just like any other rabbit, except that he is from one third to twice as large, has longer legs in proportion to his size, and has the most preposterous ears that ever were mounted on any creature but a jackass.

When he is sitting quiet, thinking about his sins, or is absent-minded or unapprehensive of danger, his majestic ears project above him conspicuously; but the breaking of a twig will scare him nearly to death, and then he tilts his ears back gently and starts for home.  All you can see, then, for the next minute, is his long gray form stretched out straight and "streaking it" through the low sage-brush, head erect, eyes right, and ears just canted a little to the rear, but showing you where the animal is, all the time, the same as if he carried a jib.  Now and then he makes a marvelous spring with his long legs, high over the stunted sage-brush, and scores a leap that would make a horse envious. Presently he comes down to a long, graceful "lope," and shortly he mysteriously disappears.  He has crouched behind a sage-bush, and will sit there and listen and tremble until you get within six feet of him, when he will get under way again.  But one must shoot at this creature once, if he wishes to see him throw his heart into his heels, and do the best he knows how.  He is frightened clear through, now, and he lays his long ears down on his back, straightens himself out like a yard-stick every spring he makes, and scatters miles behind him with an easy indifference that is enchanting.

Our party made this specimen "hump himself," as the conductor said.  The secretary started him with a shot from the Colt; I commenced spitting at him with my weapon; and all in the same instant the old "Allen's" whole broadside let go with a rattling crash, and it is not putting it too strong to say that the rabbit was frantic!  He dropped his ears, set up his tail, and left for San Francisco at a speed which can only be described as a flash and a vanish!  Long after he was out of sight we could hear him whiz.

I do not remember where we first came across "sage-brush," but as I have been speaking of it I may as well describe it.

This is easily done, for if the reader can imagine a gnarled and venerable live oak-tree reduced to a little shrub two feet-high, with its rough bark, its foliage, its twisted boughs, all complete, he can picture the "sage-brush" exactly.  Often, on lazy afternoons in the mountains, I have lain on the ground with my face under a sage-bush, and entertained myself with fancying that the gnats among its foliage were liliputian birds, and that the ants marching and countermarching about its base were liliputian flocks and herds, and myself some vast loafer from Brobdignag waiting to catch a little citizen and eat him.

It is an imposing monarch of the forest in exquisite miniature, is the "sage-brush."  Its foliage is a grayish green, and gives that tint to desert and mountain.  It smells like our domestic sage, and "sage-tea" made from it taste like the sage-tea which all boys are so well acquainted with.  The sage-brush is a singularly hardy plant, and grows right in the midst of deep sand, and among barren rocks, where nothing else in the vegetable world would try to grow, except "bunch-grass." --["Bunch-grass" grows on the bleak mountain-sides of Nevada and neighboring territories, and offers excellent feed for stock, even in the dead of winter, wherever the snow is blown aside and exposes it; notwithstanding its unpromising home, bunch-grass is a better and more nutritious diet for cattle and horses than almost any other hay or grass that is known--so stock-men say.]-- The sage-bushes grow from three to six or seven feet apart, all over the mountains and deserts of the Far West, clear to the borders of California.  There is not a tree of any kind in the deserts, for hundreds of miles--there is no vegetation at all in a regular desert, except the sage-brush and its cousin the "greasewood," which is so much like the sage-brush that the difference amounts to little.  Camp-fires and hot suppers in the deserts would be impossible but for the friendly sage-brush.  Its trunk is as large as a boy's wrist (and from that up to a man's arm), and its crooked branches are half as large as its trunk--all good, sound, hard wood, very like oak.

When a party camps, the first thing to be done is to cut sage-brush; and in a few minutes there is an opulent pile of it ready for use.  A hole a foot wide, two feet deep, and two feet long, is dug, and sage-brush chopped up and burned in it till it is full to the brim with glowing coals.  Then the cooking begins, and there is no smoke, and consequently no swearing.  Such a fire will keep all night, with very little replenishing; and it makes a very sociable camp-fire, and one around which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and profoundly entertaining.

Sage-brush is very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a distinguished failure.  Nothing can abide the taste of it but the jackass and his illegitimate child the mule.  But their testimony to its nutritiousness is worth nothing, for they will eat pine knots, or anthracite coal, or brass filings, or lead pipe, or old bottles, or anything that comes handy, and then go off looking as grateful as if they had had oysters for dinner.  Mules and donkeys and camels have appetites that anything will relieve temporarily, but nothing satisfy.

In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of getting one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as an article of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet. He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before, in his life.  Then he smacked his lips once or twice, and reached after the other sleeve. Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a smile of such contentment that it was plain to see that he regarded that as the daintiest thing about an overcoat.  The tails went next, along with some percussion caps and cough candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople.  And then my newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance in that-- manuscript letters written for the home papers.  But he was treading on dangerous ground, now.  He began to come across solid wisdom in those documents that was rather weighty on his stomach; and occasionally he would take a joke that would shake him up till it loosened his teeth; it was getting to be perilous times with him, but he held his grip with good courage and hopefully, till at last he began to stumble on statements that not even a camel could swallow with impunity.  He began to gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his forelegs to spread, and in about a quarter of a minute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter's work-bench, and died a death of indescribable agony.  I went and pulled the manuscript out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive creature had choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements of fact that I ever laid before a trusting public.

 I was about to say, when diverted from my subject, that occasionally one finds sage-bushes five or six feet high, and with a spread of branch and foliage in proportion, but two or two and a half feet is the usual height.

 CHAPTER IV.

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

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

Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the other, the Unabridged Dictionary would come too; and every time it came it damaged somebody.  One trip it "barked" the Secretary's elbow; the next trip it hurt me in the stomach, and the third it tilted Bemis's nose up till he could look down his nostrils--he said.  The pistols and coin soon settled to the bottom, but the pipes, pipe-stems, tobacco and canteens clattered and floundered after the Dictionary every time it made an assault on us, and aided and abetted the book by spilling tobacco in our eyes, and water down our backs.

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

We jumped out in undress uniform.  The driver tossed his gathered reins out on the ground, gaped and stretched complacently, drew off his heavy buckskin gloves with great deliberation and insufferable dignity--taking not the slightest notice of a dozen solicitous inquires after his health, and humbly facetious and flattering accostings, and obsequious tenders of service, from five or six hairy and half-civilized station-keepers and hostlers who were nimbly unhitching our steeds and bringing the fresh team out of the stables--for in the eyes of the stage-driver of that day, station-keepers and hostlers were a sort of good enough low creatures, useful in their place, and helping to make up a world, but not the kind of beings which a person of distinction could afford to concern himself with; while, on the contrary, in the eyes of the station-keeper and the hostler, the stage-driver was a hero--a great and shining dignitary, the world's favorite son, the envy of the people, the observed of the nations.  When they spoke to him they received his insolent silence meekly, and as being the natural and proper conduct of so great a man; when he opened his lips they all hung on his words with admiration (he never honored a particular individual with a remark, but addressed it with a broad generality to the horses, the stables, the surrounding country and the human underlings); when he discharged a facetious insulting personality at a hostler, that hostler was happy for the day; when he uttered his one jest--old as the hills, coarse, profane, witless, and inflicted on the same audience, in the same language, every time his coach drove up there--the varlets roared, and slapped their thighs, and swore it was the best thing they'd ever heard in all their lives.  And

 how they would fly around when he wanted a basin of water, a gourd of the same, or a light for his pipe!--but they would instantly insult a passenger if he so far forgot himself as to crave a favor at their hands. They could do that sort of insolence as well as the driver they copied it from--for, let it be borne in mind, the overland driver had but little less contempt for his passengers than he had for his hostlers.

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

The station buildings were long, low huts, made of sundried, mud-colored bricks, laid up without mortar (adobes, the Spaniards call these bricks, and Americans shorten it to 'dobies).  The roofs, which had no slant to them worth speaking of, were thatched and then sodded or covered with a thick layer of earth, and from this sprung a pretty rank growth of weeds and grass.  It was the first time we had ever seen a man's front yard on top of his house.  The building consisted of barns, stable-room for twelve or fifteen horses, and a hut for an eating-room for passengers. This latter had bunks in it for the station-keeper and a hostler or two. You could rest your elbow on its eaves, and you had to bend in order to get in at the door.  In place of a window there was a square hole about large enough for a man to crawl through, but this had no glass in it. There was no flooring, but the ground was packed hard.  There was no stove, but the fire-place served all needful purposes.  There were no shelves, no cupboards, no closets.  In a corner stood an open sack of flour, and nestling against its base were a couple of black and venerable tin coffee-pots, a tin teapot, a little bag of salt, and a side of bacon.

 By the door of the station-keeper's den, outside, was a tin wash-basin, on the ground.  Near it was a pail of water and a piece of yellow bar soap, and from the eaves hung a hoary blue woolen shirt, significantly-- but this latter was the station-keeper's private towel, and only two persons in all the party might venture to use it--the stage-driver and the conductor.  The latter would not, from a sense of decency; the former would not, because did not choose to encourage the advances of a station- keeper.  We had towels--in the valise; they might as well have been in Sodom and Gomorrah.  We (and the conductor) used our handkerchiefs, and the driver his pantaloons and sleeves.  By the door, inside, was fastened a small old-fashioned looking-glass frame, with two little fragments of the original mirror lodged down in one corner of it.  This arrangement afforded a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you when you looked into it, with one half of your head set up a couple of inches above the other half.  From the glass frame hung the half of a comb by a string--but if I had to describe that patriarch or die, I believe I would order some sample coffins.

It had come down from Esau and Samson, and had been accumulating hair ever since--along with certain impurities.  In one corner of the room stood three or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches of ammunition.  The station-men wore pantaloons of coarse, country-woven stuff, and into the seat and the inside of the legs were sewed ample additions of buckskin, to do duty in place of leggings, when the man rode horseback--so the pants were half dull blue and half yellow, and unspeakably picturesque.  The pants were stuffed into the tops of high boots, the heels whereof were armed with great Spanish spurs, whose little iron clogs and chains jingled with every step.  The man wore a huge beard and mustachios, an old slouch hat, a blue woolen shirt, no suspenders, no vest, no coat--in a leathern sheath in his belt, a great long "navy" revolver (slung on right side, hammer to the front), and projecting from his boot a horn-handled bowie-knife.  The furniture of the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way.  The rocking-chairs and sofas were not present, and never had been, but they were represented by two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench four feet long, and two empty candle-boxes.  The table was a greasy board on stilts, and the table- cloth and napkins had not come--and they were not looking for them, either.  A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and a tin pint cup, were at each man's place, and the driver had a queens-ware saucer that had seen better days.  Of course this duke sat at the head of the table. There was one isolated piece of table furniture that bore about it a touching air of grandeur in misfortune.  This was the caster.  It was German silver, and crippled and rusty, but it was so preposterously out of place there that it was suggestive of a tattered exiled king among barbarians, and the majesty of its native position compelled respect even in its degradation.

There was only one cruet left, and that was a stopperless, fly-specked, broken-necked thing, with two inches of vinegar in it, and a dozen preserved flies with their heels up and looking sorry they had invested there.

The station-keeper upended a disk of last week's bread, of the shape and size of an old-time cheese, and carved some slabs from it which were as good as Nicholson pavement, and tenderer.

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

Then he poured for us a beverage which he called "Slum gullion," and it is hard to think he was not inspired when he named it.  It really pretended to be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveler.

He had no sugar and no milk--not even a spoon to stir the ingredients with.

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

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

"But I don't like mackerel."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We gave up the breakfast, and paid our dollar apiece and went back to our mail-bag bed in the coach, and found comfort in our pipes.  Right here we suffered the first diminution of our princely state.  We left our six fine horses and took six mules in their place.  But they were wild Mexican fellows, and a man had to stand at the head of each of them and hold him fast while the driver gloved and got himself ready.  And when at last he grasped the reins and gave the word, the men sprung suddenly away from the mules' heads and the coach shot from the station as if it had issued from a cannon.  How the frantic animals did scamper!  It was a fierce and furious gallop--and the gait never altered for a moment till we reeled off ten or twelve miles and swept up to the next collection of little station-huts and stables.

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

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

     "ACROSS THE CONTINENT.

     "At 4.20 P.M., Sunday, we rolled out of the station at Omaha, and      started westward on our long jaunt.  A couple of hours out, dinner      was announced--an "event" to those of us who had yet to experience      what it is to eat in one of Pullman's hotels on wheels; so, stepping      into the car next forward of our sleeping palace, we found ourselves      in the dining-car.  It was a revelation to us, that first dinner on      Sunday.  And though we continued to dine for four days, and had as      many breakfasts and suppers, our whole party never ceased to admire      the perfection of the arrangements, and the marvelous results      achieved.  Upon tables covered with snowy linen, and garnished with      services of solid silver, Ethiop waiters, flitting about in spotless      white, placed as by magic a repast at which Delmonico himself could      have had no occasion to blush; and, indeed, in some respects it      would be hard for that distinguished chef to match our menu; for, in      addition to all that ordinarily makes up a first-chop dinner, had we      not our antelope steak (the gormand who has not experienced this--      bah! what does he know of the feast of fat things?) our delicious      mountain-brook trout, and choice fruits and berries, and (sauce      piquant and unpurchasable!) our sweet-scented, appetite-compelling      air of the prairies?