The mountain side was so steep that the entire town had a slant to it

like a roof. Each street was a terrace, and from each to the next street

below the descent was forty or fifty feet. The fronts of the houses were

level with the street they faced, but their rear first floors were

propped on lofty stilts; a man could stand at a rear first floor window

of a C street house and look down the chimneys of the row of houses

below him facing D street. It was a laborious climb, in that thin

atmosphere, to ascend from D to A street, and you were panting and out

of breath when you got there; but you could turn around and go down

again like a house a-fire—so to speak. The atmosphere was so rarified,

on account of the great altitude, that one’s blood lay near the surface

always, and the scratch of a pin was a disaster worth worrying about,

for the chances were that a grievous erysipelas would ensue. But to

offset this, the thin atmosphere seemed to carry healing to gunshot

wounds, and therefore, to simply shoot your adversary through both lungs

was a thing not likely to afford you any permanent satisfaction, for he

would be nearly certain to be around looking for you within the month,

and not with an opera glass, either.

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From Virginia’s airy situation one could look over a vast, far-reaching

panorama of mountain ranges and deserts; and whether the day was bright

or overcast, whether the sun was rising or setting, or flaming in the

zenith, or whether night and the moon held sway, the spectacle was

always impressive and beautiful. Over your head Mount Davidson lifted

its gray dome, and before and below you a rugged canyon clove the

battlemented hills, making a sombre gateway through which a soft-tinted

desert was glimpsed, with the silver thread of a river winding through

it, bordered with trees which many miles of distance diminished to a

delicate fringe; and still further away the snowy mountains rose up and

stretched their long barrier to the filmy horizon—far enough beyond a

lake that burned in the desert like a fallen sun, though that, itself,

lay fifty miles removed. Look from your window where you would, there

was fascination in the picture. At rare intervals—but very rare—there

were clouds in our skies, and then the setting sun would gild and flush

and glorify this mighty expanse of scenery with a bewildering pomp of

color that held the eye like a spell and moved the spirit like music.

CHAPTER XLIV.

My salary was increased to forty dollars a week. But I seldom drew it. I

had plenty of other resources, and what were two broad twenty-dollar

gold pieces to a man who had his pockets full of such and a cumbersome

abundance of bright half dollars besides? [Paper money has never come

into use on the Pacific coast.] Reporting was lucrative, and every man

in the town was lavish with his money and his “feet.” The city and all

the great mountain side were riddled with mining shafts. There were more

mines than miners. True, not ten of these mines were yielding rock worth

hauling to a mill, but everybody said, “Wait till the shaft gets down

where the ledge comes in solid, and then you will see!” So nobody was

discouraged. These were nearly all “wild cat” mines, and wholly

worthless, but nobody believed it then. The “Ophir,” the “Gould &

Curry,” the “Mexican,” and other great mines on the Comstock lead in

Virginia and Gold Hill were turning out huge piles of rich rock every

day, and every man believed that his little wild cat claim was as good

as any on the “main lead” and would infallibly be worth a thousand

dollars a foot when he “got down where it came in solid.” Poor fellow,

he was blessedly blind to the fact that he never would see that day. So

the thousand wild cat shafts burrowed deeper and deeper into the earth

day by day, and all men were beside themselves with hope and happiness.

How they labored, prophesied, exulted! Surely nothing like it was ever

seen before since the world began. Every one of these wild cat mines—not

mines, but holes in the ground over imaginary mines—was incorporated and

had handsomely engraved “stock” and the stock was salable, too. It was

bought and sold with a feverish avidity in the boards every day. You

could go up on the mountain side, scratch around and find a ledge (there

was no lack of them), put up a “notice” with a grandiloquent name in it,

start a shaft, get your stock printed, and with nothing whatever to

prove that your mine was worth a straw, you could put your stock on the

market and sell out for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. To make

money, and make it fast, was as easy as it was to eat your dinner.

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Every man owned “feet” in fifty different wild cat mines and considered

his fortune made. Think of a city with not one solitary poor man in it!

One would suppose that when month after month went by and still not a

wild cat mine (by wild cat I mean, in general terms, _any_ claim not

located on the mother vein, i.e., the “Comstock”) yielded a ton of rock

worth crushing, the people would begin to wonder if they were not

putting too much faith in their prospective riches; but there was not a

thought of such a thing. They burrowed away, bought and sold, and were

happy.

New claims were taken up daily, and it was the friendly custom to run

straight to the newspaper offices, give the reporter forty or fifty

“feet,” and get them to go and examine the mine and publish a notice of

it. They did not care a fig what you said about the property so you said

something. Consequently we generally said a word or two to the effect

that the “indications” were good, or that the ledge was “six feet wide,”

or that the rock “resembled the Comstock” (and so it did—but as a

general thing the resemblance was not startling enough to knock you

down). If the rock was moderately promising, we followed the custom of

the country, used strong adjectives and frothed at the mouth as if a

very marvel in silver discoveries had transpired. If the mine was a

“developed” one, and had no pay ore to show (and of course it hadn’t),

we praised the tunnel; said it was one of the most infatuating tunnels

in the land; driveled and driveled about the tunnel till we ran entirely

out of ecstasies—but never said a word about the rock. We would squander

half a column of adulation on a shaft, or a new wire rope, or a dressed

pine windlass, or a fascinating force pump, and close with a burst of

admiration of the “gentlemanly and efficient Superintendent” of the

mine—but never utter a whisper about the rock. And those people were

always pleased, always satisfied. Occasionally we patched up and

varnished our reputation for discrimination and stern, undeviating

accuracy, by giving some old abandoned claim a blast that ought to have

made its dry bones rattle—and then somebody would seize it and sell it

on the fleeting notoriety thus conferred upon it.

There was _nothing_ in the shape of a mining claim that was not salable.

We received presents of “feet” every day. If we needed a hundred dollars

or so, we sold some; if not, we hoarded it away, satisfied that it would

ultimately be worth a thousand dollars a foot. I had a trunk about half

full of “stock.” When a claim made a stir in the market and went up to a

high figure, I searched through my pile to see if I had any of its

stock—and generally found it.

The prices rose and fell constantly; but still a fall disturbed us

little, because a thousand dollars a foot was our figure, and so we were

content to let it fluctuate as much as it pleased till it reached it. My

pile of stock was not all given to me by people who wished their claims

“noticed.” At least half of it was given me by persons who had no

thought of such a thing, and looked for nothing more than a simple

verbal “thank you;” and you were not even obliged by law to furnish

that. If you are coming up the street with a couple of baskets of apples

in your hands, and you meet a friend, you naturally invite him to take a

few. That describes the condition of things in Virginia in the “flush

times.” Every man had his pockets full of stock, and it was the actual

_custom_ of the country to part with small quantities of it to friends

without the asking.

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Very often it was a good idea to close the transaction instantly, when a

man offered a stock present to a friend, for the offer was only good and

binding at that moment, and if the price went to a high figure shortly

afterward the procrastination was a thing to be regretted. Mr. Stewart

(Senator, now, from Nevada) one day told me he would give me twenty feet

of “Justis” stock if I would walk over to his office. It was worth five

or ten dollars a foot. I asked him to make the offer good for next day,

as I was just going to dinner. He said he would not be in town; so I

risked it and took my dinner instead of the stock. Within the week the

price went up to seventy dollars and afterward to a hundred and fifty,

but nothing could make that man yield. I suppose he sold that stock of

mine and placed the guilty proceeds in his own pocket. [My revenge will

be found in the accompanying portrait.] I met three friends one

afternoon, who said they had been buying “Overman” stock at auction at

eight dollars a foot. One said if I would come up to his office he would

give me fifteen feet; another said he would add fifteen; the third said

he would do the same. But I was going after an inquest and could not

stop. A few weeks afterward they sold all their “Overman” at six hundred

dollars a foot and generously came around to tell me about it—and also

to urge me to accept of the next forty-five feet of it that people tried

to force on me.

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These are actual facts, and I could make the list a long one and still

confine myself strictly to the truth. Many a time friends gave us as

much as twenty-five feet of stock that was selling at twenty-five

dollars a foot, and they thought no more of it than they would of

offering a guest a cigar. These were “flush times” indeed! I thought

they were going to last always, but somehow I never was much of a

prophet.

To show what a wild spirit possessed the mining brain of the community,

I will remark that “claims” were actually “located” in excavations for

cellars, where the pick had exposed what seemed to be quartz veins—and

not cellars in the suburbs, either, but in the very heart of the city;

and forthwith stock would be issued and thrown on the market. It was

small matter who the cellar belonged to—the “ledge” belonged to the

finder, and unless the United States government interfered (inasmuch as

the government holds the primary right to mines of the noble metals in

Nevada—or at least did then), it was considered to be his privilege to

work it. Imagine a stranger staking out a mining claim among the costly

shrubbery in your front yard and calmly proceeding to lay waste the

ground with pick and shovel and blasting powder! It has been often done

in California. In the middle of one of the principal business streets of

Virginia, a man “located” a mining claim and began a shaft on it. He

gave me a hundred feet of the stock and I sold it for a fine suit of

clothes because I was afraid somebody would fall down the shaft and sue

for damages. I owned in another claim that was located in the middle of

another street; and to show how absurd people can be, that “East India”

stock (as it was called) sold briskly although there was an ancient

tunnel running directly under the claim and any man could go into it and

see that it did not cut a quartz ledge or anything that remotely

resembled one.

One plan of acquiring sudden wealth was to “salt” a wild cat claim and

sell out while the excitement was up. The process was simple.

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The schemer located a worthless ledge, sunk a shaft on it, bought a

wagon load of rich “Comstock” ore, dumped a portion of it into the shaft

and piled the rest by its side, above ground. Then he showed the

property to a simpleton and sold it to him at a high figure. Of course

the wagon load of rich ore was all that the victim ever got out of his

purchase. A most remarkable case of “salting” was that of the “North

Ophir.” It was claimed that this vein was a “remote extension” of the

original “Ophir,” a valuable mine on the “Comstock.” For a few days

everybody was talking about the rich developments in the North Ophir. It

was said that it yielded perfectly pure silver in small, solid lumps. I

went to the place with the owners, and found a shaft six or eight feet

deep, in the bottom of which was a badly shattered vein of dull,

yellowish, unpromising rock. One would as soon expect to find silver in

a grindstone. We got out a pan of the rubbish and washed it in a puddle,

and sure enough, among the sediment we found half a dozen black, bullet-

looking pellets of unimpeachable “native” silver. Nobody had ever heard

of such a thing before; science could not account for such a queer

novelty. The stock rose to sixty-five dollars a foot, and at this figure

the world-renowned tragedian, McKean Buchanan, bought a commanding

interest and prepared to quit the stage once more—he was always doing

that. And then it transpired that the mine had been “salted”—and not in

any hackneyed way, either, but in a singularly bold, barefaced and

peculiarly original and outrageous fashion. On one of the lumps of

“native” silver was discovered the minted legend, “TED STATES OF,” and

then it was plainly apparent that the mine had been “salted” with melted

half-dollars! The lumps thus obtained had been blackened till they

resembled native silver, and were then mixed with the shattered rock in

the bottom of the shaft. It is literally true. Of course the price of

the stock at once fell to nothing, and the tragedian was ruined. But for

this calamity we might have lost McKean Buchanan from the stage.

CHAPTER XLV.

The “flush times” held bravely on. Something over two years before, Mr.

Goodman and another journeyman printer, had borrowed forty dollars and

set out from San Francisco to try their fortunes in the new city of

Virginia. They found the _Territorial Enterprise_, a poverty-stricken

weekly journal, gasping for breath and likely to die. They bought it,

type, fixtures, good-will and all, for a thousand dollars, on long time.

The editorial sanctum, news-room, press-room, publication office, bed-

chamber, parlor, and kitchen were all compressed into one apartment and

it was a small one, too. The editors and printers slept on the floor, a

Chinaman did their cooking, and the “imposing-stone” was the general

dinner table. But now things were changed. The paper was a great daily,

printed by steam; there were five editors and twenty-three compositors;

the subscription price was sixteen dollars a year; the advertising rates

were exorbitant, and the columns crowded. The paper was clearing from

six to ten thousand dollars a month, and the “Enterprise Building” was

finished and ready for occupation—a stately fireproof brick. Every day

from five all the way up to eleven columns of “live” advertisements were

left out or crowded into spasmodic and irregular “supplements.”

The “Gould & Curry” company were erecting a monster hundred-stamp mill

at a cost that ultimately fell little short of a million dollars. Gould

& Curry stock paid heavy dividends—a rare thing, and an experience

confined to the dozen or fifteen claims located on the “main lead,” the

“Comstock.” The Superintendent of the Gould & Curry lived, rent free, in

a fine house built and furnished by the company. He drove a fine pair of

horses which were a present from the company, and his salary was twelve

thousand dollars a year. The superintendent of another of the great

mines traveled in grand state, had a salary of twenty-eight thousand

dollars a year, and in a law suit in after days claimed that he was to

have had one per cent. on the gross yield of the bullion likewise.

Money was wonderfully plenty. The trouble was, not how to get it,—but

how to spend it, how to lavish it, get rid of it, squander it. And so it

was a happy thing that just at this juncture the news came over the

wires that a great United States Sanitary Commission had been formed and

money was wanted for the relief of the wounded sailors and soldiers of

the Union languishing in the Eastern hospitals. Right on the heels of it

came word that San Francisco had responded superbly before the telegram

was half a day old. Virginia rose as one man! A Sanitary Committee was

hurriedly organized, and its chairman mounted a vacant cart in C street

and tried to make the clamorous multitude understand that the rest of

the committee were flying hither and thither and working with all their

might and main, and that if the town would only wait an hour, an office

would be ready, books opened, and the Commission prepared to receive

contributions. His voice was drowned and his information lost in a

ceaseless roar of cheers, and demands that the money be received

_now_—they swore they would not wait. The chairman pleaded and argued,

but, deaf to all entreaty, men plowed their way through the throng and

rained checks of gold coin into the cart and skurried away for more.

Hands clutching money, were thrust aloft out of the jam by men who hoped

this eloquent appeal would cleave a road their strugglings could not

open. The very Chinamen and Indians caught the excitement and dashed

their half dollars into the cart without knowing or caring what it was

all about. Women plunged into the crowd, trimly attired, fought their

way to the cart with their coin, and emerged again, by and by, with

their apparel in a state of hopeless dilapidation. It was the wildest

mob Virginia had ever seen and the most determined and ungovernable; and

when at last it abated its fury and dispersed, it had not a penny in its

pocket.

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To use its own phraseology, it came there “flush” and went away

“busted.”

After that, the Commission got itself into systematic working order, and

for weeks the contributions flowed into its treasury in a generous

stream. Individuals and all sorts of organizations levied upon

themselves a regular weekly tax for the sanitary fund, graduated

according to their means, and there was not another grand universal

outburst till the famous “Sanitary Flour Sack” came our way. Its history

is peculiar and interesting. A former schoolmate of mine, by the name of

Reuel Gridley, was living at the little city of Austin, in the Reese

river country, at this time, and was the Democratic candidate for mayor.

He and the Republican candidate made an agreement that the defeated man

should be publicly presented with a fifty-pound sack of flour by the

successful one, and should carry it home on his shoulder. Gridley was

defeated. The new mayor gave him the sack of flour, and he shouldered it

and carried it a mile or two, from Lower Austin to his home in Upper

Austin, attended by a band of music and the whole population. Arrived

there, he said he did not need the flour, and asked what the people

thought he had better do with it. A voice said:

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

The suggestion was greeted with a round of applause, and Gridley mounted

a dry-goods box and assumed the role of auctioneer. The bids went higher

and higher, as the sympathies of the pioneers awoke and expanded, till

at last the sack was knocked down to a mill man at two hundred and fifty

dollars, and his check taken. He was asked where he would have the flour

delivered, and he said:

“Nowhere—sell it again.”

Now the cheers went up royally, and the multitude were fairly in the

spirit of the thing. So Gridley stood there and shouted and perspired

till the sun went down; and when the crowd dispersed he had sold the

sack to three hundred different people, and had taken in eight thousand

dollars in gold. And still the flour sack was in his possession.

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

“Fetch along your flour sack!”

Thirty-six hours afterward Gridley arrived, and an afternoon mass

meeting was held in the Opera House, and the auction began. But the sack

had come sooner than it was expected; the people were not thoroughly

aroused, and the sale dragged. At nightfall only five thousand dollars

had been secured, and there was a crestfallen feeling in the community.

However, there was no disposition to let the matter rest here and

acknowledge vanquishment at the hands of the village of Austin. Till

late in the night the principal citizens were at work arranging the

morrow’s campaign, and when they went to bed they had no fears for the

result. At eleven the next morning a procession of open carriages,

attended by clamorous bands of music and adorned with a moving display

of flags, filed along C street and was soon in danger of blockade by a

huzzaing multitude of citizens. In the first carriage sat Gridley, with

the flour sack in prominent view, the latter splendid with bright paint

and gilt lettering; also in the same carriage sat the mayor and the

recorder. The other carriages contained the Common Council, the editors

and reporters, and other people of imposing consequence. The crowd

pressed to the corner of C and Taylor streets, expecting the sale to

begin there, but they were disappointed, and also unspeakably surprised;

for the cavalcade moved on as if Virginia had ceased to be of

importance, and took its way over the “divide,” toward the small town of

Gold Hill. Telegrams had gone ahead to Gold Hill, Silver City and

Dayton, and those communities were at fever heat and rife for the

conflict. It was a very hot day, and wonderfully dusty. At the end of a

short half hour we descended into Gold Hill with drums beating and

colors flying, and enveloped in imposing clouds of dust. The whole

population—men, women and children, Chinamen and Indians, were massed in

the main street, all the flags in town were at the mast head, and the

blare of the bands was drowned in cheers. Gridley stood up and asked who

would make the first bid for the National Sanitary Flour Sack. Gen. W.

said:

“The Yellow Jacket silver mining company offers a thousand dollars,

coin!”

A tempest of applause followed. A telegram carried the news to Virginia,

and fifteen minutes afterward that city’s population was massed in the

streets devouring the tidings—for it was part of the programme that the

bulletin boards should do a good work that day. Every few minutes a new

dispatch was bulletined from Gold Hill, and still the excitement grew.

Telegrams began to return to us from Virginia beseeching Gridley to

bring back the flour sack; but such was not the plan of the campaign. At

the end of an hour Gold Hill’s small population had paid a figure for

the flour sack that awoke all the enthusiasm of Virginia when the grand

total was displayed upon the bulletin boards. Then the Gridley cavalcade

moved on, a giant refreshed with new lager beer and plenty of it—for the

people brought it to the carriages without waiting to measure it—and

within three hours more the expedition had carried Silver City and

Dayton by storm and was on its way back covered with glory. Every move

had been telegraphed and bulletined, and as the procession entered

Virginia and filed down C street at half past eight in the evening the

town was abroad in the thoroughfares, torches were glaring, flags

flying, bands playing, cheer on cheer cleaving the air, and the city

ready to surrender at discretion. The auction began, every bid was

greeted with bursts of applause, and at the end of two hours and a half

a population of fifteen thousand souls had paid in coin for a fifty-

pound sack of flour a sum equal to forty thousand dollars in greenbacks!

It was at a rate in the neighborhood of three dollars for each man,

woman and child of the population. The grand total would have been twice

as large, but the streets were very narrow, and hundreds who wanted to

bid could not get within a block of the stand, and could not make

themselves heard. These grew tired of waiting and many of them went home

long before the auction was over. This was the greatest day Virginia

ever saw, perhaps.

Gridley sold the sack in Carson city and several California towns; also

in San Francisco. Then he took it east and sold it in one or two

Atlantic cities, I think. I am not sure of that, but I know that he

finally carried it to St. Louis, where a monster Sanitary Fair was being

held, and after selling it there for a large sum and helping on the

enthusiasm by displaying the portly silver bricks which Nevada’s

donation had produced, he had the flour baked up into small cakes and

retailed them at high prices.

It was estimated that when the flour sack’s mission was ended it had

been sold for a grand total of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in

greenbacks! This is probably the only instance on record where common

family flour brought three thousand dollars a pound in the public

market.

It is due to Mr. Gridley’s memory to mention that the expenses of his

sanitary flour sack expedition of fifteen thousand miles, going and

returning, were paid in large part if not entirely, out of his own

pocket. The time he gave to it was not less than three months. Mr.

Gridley was a soldier in the Mexican war and a pioneer Californian. He

died at Stockton, California, in December, 1870, greatly regretted.

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CHAPTER XLVI.

There were nabobs in those days—in the “flush times,” I mean. Every rich

strike in the mines created one or two. I call to mind several of these.

They were careless, easy-going fellows, as a general thing, and the

community at large was as much benefited by their riches as they were

themselves—possibly more, in some cases.

Two cousins, teamsters, did some hauling for a man and had to take a

small segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu of $300 cash. They

gave an outsider a third to open the mine, and they went on teaming. But

not long. Ten months afterward the mine was out of debt and paying each

owner $8,000 to $10,000 a month—say $100,000 a year.

One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of wore $6,000

worth of diamonds in his bosom, and swore he was unhappy because he

could not spend his money as fast as he made it.

Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that often reached $16,000 a

month; and he used to love to tell how he had worked in the very mine

that yielded it, for five dollars a day, when he first came to the

country.

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The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another of these pets

of fortune—lifted from actual poverty to affluence almost in a single

night—who was able to offer $100,000 for a position of high official

distinction, shortly afterward, and did offer it—but failed to get it,

his politics not being as sound as his bank account.

Then there was John Smith. He was a good, honest, kind-hearted soul,

born and reared in the lower ranks of life, and miraculously ignorant.

He drove a team, and owned a small ranch—a ranch that paid him a

comfortable living, for although it yielded but little hay, what little

it did yield was worth from $250 to $300 in gold per ton in the market.

Presently Smith traded a few acres of the ranch for a small undeveloped

silver mine in Gold Hill. He opened the mine and built a little

unpretending ten-stamp mill. Eighteen months afterward he retired from

the hay business, for his mining income had reached a most comfortable

figure. Some people said it was $30,000 a month, and others said it was

$60,000. Smith was very rich at any rate.

And then he went to Europe and traveled. And when he came back he was

never tired of telling about the fine hogs he had seen in England, and

the gorgeous sheep he had seen in Spain, and the fine cattle he had

noticed in the vicinity of Rome. He was full of wonders of the old

world, and advised everybody to travel. He said a man never imagined

what surprising things there were in the world till he had traveled.

One day, on board ship, the passengers made up a pool of $500, which was

to be the property of the man who should come nearest to guessing the

run of the vessel for the next twenty-four hours. Next day, toward noon,

the figures were all in the purser’s hands in sealed envelopes. Smith

was serene and happy, for he had been bribing the engineer. But another

party won the prize! Smith said:

“Here, that won’t do! He guessed two miles wider of the mark than I

did.”

The purser said, “Mr. Smith, you missed it further than any man on

board. We traveled two hundred and eight miles yesterday.”

“Well, sir,” said Smith, “that’s just where I’ve got you, for I guessed

two hundred and nine. If you’ll look at my figgers again you’ll find a 2

and two 0’s, which stands for 200, don’t it?—and after ’em you’ll find a

9 (2009), which stands for two hundred and nine. I reckon I’ll take that

money, if you please.”

The Gould & Curry claim comprised twelve hundred feet, and it all

belonged originally to the two men whose names it bears. Mr. Curry owned

two thirds of it—and he said that he sold it out for twenty-five hundred

dollars in cash, and an old plug horse that ate up his market value in

hay and barley in seventeen days by the watch. And he said that Gould

sold out for a pair of second-hand government blankets and a bottle of

whisky that killed nine men in three hours, and that an unoffending

stranger that smelt the cork was disabled for life. Four years afterward

the mine thus disposed of was worth in the San Francisco market seven

millions six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin.

In the early days a poverty-stricken Mexican who lived in a canyon

directly back of Virginia City, had a stream of water as large as a

man’s wrist trickling from the hill-side on his premises. The Ophir

Company segregated a hundred feet of their mine and traded it to him for

the stream of water. The hundred feet proved to be the richest part of

the entire mine; four years after the swap, its market value (including

its mill) was $1,500,000.

An individual who owned twenty feet in the Ophir mine before its great

riches were revealed to men, traded it for a horse, and a very sorry

looking brute he was, too. A year or so afterward, when Ophir stock went

up to $3,000 a foot, this man, who had not a cent, used to say he was

the most startling example of magnificence and misery the world had ever

seen—because he was able to ride a sixty-thousand-dollar horse—yet could

not scrape up cash enough to buy a saddle, and was obliged to borrow one

or ride bareback. He said if fortune were to give him another sixty-

thousand-dollar horse it would ruin him.

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A youth of nineteen, who was a telegraph operator in Virginia on a

salary of a hundred dollars a month, and who, when he could not make out

German names in the list of San Francisco steamer arrivals, used to

ingeniously select and supply substitutes for them out of an old Berlin

city directory, made himself rich by watching the mining telegrams that

passed through his hands and buying and selling stocks accordingly,

through a friend in San Francisco. Once when a private dispatch was sent

from Virginia announcing a rich strike in a prominent mine and advising

that the matter be kept secret till a large amount of the stock could be

secured, he bought forty “feet” of the stock at twenty dollars a foot,

and afterward sold half of it at eight hundred dollars a foot and the

rest at double that figure. Within three months he was worth $150,000,

and had resigned his telegraphic position.

Another telegraph operator who had been discharged by the company for

divulging the secrets of the office, agreed with a moneyed man in San

Francisco to furnish him the result of a great Virginia mining lawsuit

within an hour after its private reception by the parties to it in San

Francisco. For this he was to have a large percentage of the profits on

purchases and sales made on it by his fellow-conspirator. So he went,

disguised as a teamster, to a little wayside telegraph office in the

mountains, got acquainted with the operator, and sat in the office day

after day, smoking his pipe, complaining that his team was fagged out

and unable to travel—and meantime listening to the dispatches as they

passed clicking through the machine from Virginia. Finally the private

dispatch announcing the result of the lawsuit sped over the wires, and

as soon as he heard it he telegraphed his friend in San Francisco:

“Am tired waiting. Shall sell the team and go home.”

It was the signal agreed upon. The word “waiting” left out, would have

signified that the suit had gone the other way.

The mock teamster’s friend picked up a deal of the mining stock, at low

figures, before the news became public, and a fortune was the result.

For a long time after one of the great Virginia mines had been

incorporated, about fifty feet of the original location were still in

the hands of a man who had never signed the incorporation papers. The

stock became very valuable, and every effort was made to find this man,

but he had disappeared. Once it was heard that he was in New York, and

one or two speculators went east but failed to find him. Once the news

came that he was in the Bermudas, and straightway a speculator or two

hurried east and sailed for Bermuda—but he was not there. Finally he was

heard of in Mexico, and a friend of his, a bar-keeper on a salary,

scraped together a little money and sought him out, bought his “feet”

for a hundred dollars, returned and sold the property for $75,000.

But why go on? The traditions of Silverland are filled with instances

like these, and I would never get through enumerating them were I to

attempt do it. I only desired to give, the reader an idea of a

peculiarity of the “flush times” which I could not present so strikingly

in any other way, and which some mention of was necessary to a realizing

comprehension of the time and the country.

I was personally acquainted with the majority of the nabobs I have

referred to, and so, for old acquaintance sake, I have shifted their

occupations and experiences around in such a way as to keep the Pacific

public from recognizing these once notorious men. No longer notorious,

for the majority of them have drifted back into poverty and obscurity

again.

In Nevada there used to be current the story of an adventure of two of

her nabobs, which may or may not have occurred. I give it for what it is

worth:

Col. Jim had seen somewhat of the world, and knew more or less of its

ways; but Col. Jack was from the back settlements of the States, had led

a life of arduous toil, and had never seen a city. These two, blessed

with sudden wealth, projected a visit to New York,—Col. Jack to see the

sights, and Col. Jim to guard his unsophistication from misfortune. They

reached San Francisco in the night, and sailed in the morning. Arrived

in New York, Col. Jack said:

“I’ve heard tell of carriages all my life, and now I mean to have a ride

in one; I don’t care what it costs. Come along.”

They stepped out on the sidewalk, and Col. Jim called a stylish

barouche. But Col. Jack said:

“_No_, sir! None of your cheap-John turn-outs for me. I’m here to have a

good time, and money ain’t any object. I mean to have the nobbiest rig

that’s going. Now here comes the very trick. Stop that yaller one with

the pictures on it—don’t you fret—I’ll stand all the expenses myself.”

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

“Ain’t it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not! Cushions, and windows, and

pictures, till you can’t rest. What would the boys say if they _could_

see us cutting a swell like this in New York? By George, I wish they

could see us.”

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

“Say, Johnny, this suits _me_!—suits yours truly, you bet, you! I want

this shebang all day. I’m _on_ it, old man! Let ’em out! Make ’em go!

We’ll make it all right with _you_, sonny!”

The driver passed his hand through the strap-hole, and tapped for his

fare—it was before the gongs came into common use. Col. Jack took the

hand, and shook it cordially. He said:

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“You twig me, old pard! All right between gents. Smell of _that_, and

see how you like it!”

And he put a twenty-dollar gold piece in the driver’s hand. After a

moment the driver said he could not make change.

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

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

“_Ain’t_ it style, though? Hanged if I don’t hire this thing every day

for a week.”

The omnibus stopped, and a young lady got in. Col. Jack stared a moment,

then nudged Col. Jim with his elbow:

“Don’t say a word,” he whispered. “Let her ride, if she wants to.

Gracious, there’s room enough.”

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

Jack.

“What’s this for?” said he.

“Give it to the driver, please.”

“Take back your money, madam. We can’t allow it. You’re welcome to ride

here as long as you please, but this shebang’s chartered, and we can’t

let you pay a cent.”

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The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old lady with a basket

climbed in, and proffered her fare.

“Excuse me,” said Col. Jack. “You’re perfectly welcome here, madam, but

we can’t allow you to pay. Set right down there, mum, and don’t you be

the least uneasy. Make yourself just as free as if you was in your own

turn-out.”

Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat women, and a couple of

children, entered.

“Come right along, friends,” said Col. Jack; “don’t mind _us_. This is a

free blow-out.” Then he whispered to Col. Jim,

“New York ain’t no sociable place, I don’t reckon—it ain’t no _name_ for

it!”

He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver, and made everybody

cordially welcome. The situation dawned on the people, and they pocketed

their money, and delivered themselves up to covert enjoyment of the

episode. Half a dozen more passengers entered.

“Oh, there’s _plenty_ of room,” said Col. Jack. “Walk right in, and make

yourselves at home. A blow-out ain’t worth anything _as_ a blow-out,

unless a body has company.” Then in a whisper to Col. Jim: “But _ain’t_

these New Yorkers friendly? And ain’t they cool about it, too? Icebergs

ain’t anywhere. I reckon they’d tackle a hearse, if it was going their

way.”

More passengers got in; more yet, and still more. Both seats were

filled, and a file of men were standing up, holding on to the cleats

overhead. Parties with baskets and bundles were climbing up on the roof.

Half-suppressed laughter rippled up from all sides.

“Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don’t bang anything

that ever I saw, I’m an Injun!” whispered Col. Jack.

A Chinaman crowded his way in.

“I weaken!” said Col. Jack. “Hold on, driver! Keep your seats, ladies,

and gents. Just make yourselves free—everything’s paid for. Driver,

rustle these folks around as long as they’re a mind to go—friends of

ours, you know. Take them everywheres—and if you want more money, come

to the St. Nicholas, and we’ll make it all right. Pleasant journey to

you, ladies and gents—go it just as long as you please—it shan’t cost

you a cent!”

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

“Jimmy, it’s the sociablest place _I_ ever saw. The Chinaman waltzed in

as comfortable as anybody. If we’d staid awhile, I reckon we’d had some

niggers. B’ George, we’ll have to barricade our doors to-night, or some

of these ducks will be trying to sleep with us.”

CHAPTER XLVII.

Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must observe

the style of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with

most ceremony. I cannot say which class we buried with most eclat in our

“flush times,” the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished

rough—possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of society

honored their illustrious dead about equally; and hence, no doubt the

philosopher I have quoted from would have needed to see two

representative funerals in Virginia before forming his estimate of the

people.

There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was a

representative citizen. He had “killed his man”—not in his own quarrel,

it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He

had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing

helpmeet whom he could have discarded without the formality of a

divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department and been a

very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation

throughout the town, but especially in the vast bottom-stratum of

society.

On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of a

wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body,

cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken his

neck—and after due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with

intelligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of death “by

the visitation of God.” What could the world do without juries?

Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles in

town were hired, all the saloons put in mourning, all the municipal and

fire-company flags hung at half-mast, and all the firemen ordered to

muster in uniform and bring their machines duly draped in black. Now—let

us remark in parenthesis—as all the peoples of the earth had

representative adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had

brought the slang of his nation or his locality with him, the

combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely

varied and copious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps,

except in the mines of California in the “early days.” Slang was the

language of Nevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be

understood. Such phrases as “You bet!” “Oh, no, I reckon not!” “No Irish

need apply,” and a hundred others, became so common as to fall from the

lips of a speaker unconsciously—and very often when they did not touch

the subject under discussion and consequently failed to mean anything.

After Buck Fanshaw’s inquest, a meeting of the short-haired brotherhood

was held, for nothing can be done on the Pacific coast without a public

meeting and an expression of sentiment. Regretful resolutions were

passed and various committees appointed; among others, a committee of

one was deputed to call on the minister, a fragile, gentle, spiritual

new fledgling from an Eastern theological seminary, and as yet

unacquainted with the ways of the mines. The committeeman, “Scotty”

Briggs, made his visit; and in after days it was worth something to hear

the minister tell about it. Scotty was a stalwart rough, whose customary

suit, when on weighty official business, like committee work, was a fire

helmet, flaming red flannel shirt, patent leather belt with spanner and

revolver attached, coat hung over arm, and pants stuffed into boot tops.

He formed something of a contrast to the pale theological student. It is

fair to say of Scotty, however, in passing, that he had a warm heart,

and a strong love for his friends, and never entered into a quarrel when

he could reasonably keep out of it. Indeed, it was commonly said that

whenever one of Scotty’s fights was investigated, it always turned out

that it had originally been no affair of his, but that out of native

goodheartedness he had dropped in of his own accord to help the man who

was getting the worst of it. He and Buck Fanshaw were bosom friends, for

years, and had often taken adventurous “pot-luck” together. On one

occasion, they had thrown off their coats and taken the weaker side in a

fight among strangers, and after gaining a hard-earned victory, turned

and found that the men they were helping had deserted early, and not

only that, but had stolen their coats and made off with them! But to

return to Scotty’s visit to the minister. He was on a sorrowful mission,

now, and his face was the picture of woe. Being admitted to the presence

he sat down before the clergyman, placed his fire-hat on an unfinished

manuscript sermon under the minister’s nose, took from it a red silk

handkerchief, wiped his brow and heaved a sigh of dismal impressiveness,

explanatory of his business.

He choked, and even shed tears; but with an effort he mastered his voice

and said in lugubrious tones:

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

“Am I the—pardon me, I believe I do not understand?”

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

“Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought maybe you

would give us a lift, if we’d tackle you—that is, if I’ve got the rights

of it and you are the head clerk of the doxology-works next door.”

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

“The which?”

“The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose

sanctuary adjoins these premises.”

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

“You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can’t call that hand. Ante

and pass the buck.”

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

“Well, you’ve ruther got the bulge on me. Or maybe we’ve both got the

bulge, somehow. You don’t smoke me and I don’t smoke you. You see, one

of the boys has passed in his checks and we want to give him a good

send-off, and so the thing I’m on now is to roust out somebody to jerk a

little chin-music for us and waltz him through handsome.”

“My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your observations

are wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot you simplify them in some way?

At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it

not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical

statements of fact unencumbered with obstructing accumulations of

metaphor and allegory?”

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

“I’ll have to pass, I judge.”

“How?”

“You’ve raised me out, pard.”

“I still fail to catch your meaning.”

“Why, that last lead of yourn is too many for me—that’s the idea. I

can’t neither trump nor follow suit.”

The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty leaned his head

on his hand and gave himself up to thought.

Presently his face came up, sorrowful but confident.

“I’ve got it now, so’s you can savvy,” he said. “What we want is a

gospel-sharp. See?”

“A what?”

“Gospel-sharp. Parson.”

“Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a clergyman—a parson.”

“Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle it like a man. Put it

there!”—extending a brawny paw, which closed over the minister’s small

hand and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal sympathy and fervent

gratification.

“Now we’re all right, pard. Let’s start fresh. Don’t you mind my

snuffling a little—becuz we’re in a power of trouble. You see, one of

the boys has gone up the flume—”

“Gone where?”

“Up the flume—throwed up the sponge, you understand.”

“Thrown up the sponge?”

“Yes—kicked the bucket—”

“Ah—has departed to that mysterious country from whose bourne no

traveler returns.”

“Return! I reckon not. Why pard, he’s _dead_!”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might be getting tangled some

more. Yes, you see he’s dead again—”

“_Again_? Why, has he ever been dead before?”

“Dead before? No! Do you reckon a man has got as many lives as a cat?

But you bet you he’s awful dead now, poor old boy, and I wish I’d never

seen this day. I don’t want no better friend than Buck Fanshaw. I knowed

him by the back; and when I know a man and like him, I freeze to him—you

hear _me_. Take him all round, pard, there never was a bullier man in

the mines. No man ever knowed Buck Fanshaw to go back on a friend. But

it’s all up, you know, it’s all up. It ain’t no use. They’ve scooped

him.”

“Scooped him?”

“Yes—death has. Well, well, well, we’ve got to give him up. Yes indeed.

It’s a kind of a hard world, after all, ain’t it? But pard, he was a

rustler! You ought to seen him get started once. He was a bully boy with

a glass eye! Just spit in his face and give him room according to his

strength, and it was just beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was

the worst son of a thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was on it! He

was on it bigger than an Injun!”

“On it? On what?”

“On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. He didn’t

give a continental for anybody. _Beg_ your pardon, friend, for coming so

near saying a cuss-word—but you see I’m on an awful strain, in this

palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so mild.

But we’ve got to give him up. There ain’t any getting around that, I

don’t reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him—”

“Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the obsequies?”

“Obs’quies is good. Yes. That’s it—that’s our little game. We are going

to get the thing up regardless, you know. He was always nifty himself,

and so you bet you his funeral ain’t going to be no slouch—solid silver

door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and a nigger on the

box in a biled shirt and a plug hat—how’s that for high? And we’ll take

care of you, pard. We’ll fix you all right. There’ll be a kerridge for

you; and whatever you want, you just ’scape out and we’ll ’tend to it.

We’ve got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind, in No. 1’s house,

and don’t you be afraid. Just go in and toot your horn, if you don’t

sell a clam. Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for anybody

that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the whitest men that

was ever in the mines. You can’t draw it too strong. He never could

stand it to see things going wrong. He’s done more to make this town

quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I’ve seen him lick four Greasers

in eleven minutes, myself. If a thing wanted regulating, he warn’t a man

to go browsing around after somebody to do it, but he would prance in

and regulate it himself. He warn’t a Catholic. Scasely. He was down on

’em. His word was, ‘No Irish need apply!’ But it didn’t make no

difference about that when it came down to what a man’s rights was—and

so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic bone-yard and started in to

stake out town-lots in it he went for ’em! And he cleaned ’em, too! I

was there, pard, and I seen it myself.”

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“That was very well indeed—at least the impulse was—whether the act was

strictly defensible or not. Had deceased any religious convictions? That

is to say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge allegiance to a

higher power?”

More reflection.

“I reckon you’ve stumped me again, pard. Could you say it over once

more, and say it slow?”

“Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he ever been

connected with any organization sequestered from secular concerns and

devoted to self-sacrifice in the interests of morality?”

“All down but nine—set ’em up on the other alley, pard.”

“What did I understand you to say?”

“Why, you’re most too many for me, you know. When you get in with your

left I hunt grass every time. Every time you draw, you fill; but I don’t

seem to have any luck. Lets have a new deal.”

“How? Begin again?”

“That’s it.”

“Very well. Was he a good man, and—”

“There—I see that; don’t put up another chip till I look at my hand. A

good man, says you? Pard, it ain’t no name for it. He was the best man

that ever—pard, you would have doted on that man. He could lam any

galoot of his inches in America. It was him that put down the riot last

election before it got a start; and everybody said he was the only man

that could have done it. He waltzed in with a spanner in one hand and a

trumpet in the other, and sent fourteen men home on a shutter in less

than three minutes. He had that riot all broke up and prevented nice

before anybody ever got a chance to strike a blow. He was always for

peace, and he would have peace—he could not stand disturbances. Pard, he

was a great loss to this town. It would please the boys if you could

chip in something like that and do him justice. Here once when the Micks

got to throwing stones through the Methodis’ Sunday school windows, Buck

Fanshaw, all of his own notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple of

six-shooters and mounted guard over the Sunday school. Says he, ‘No

Irish need apply!’ And they didn’t. He was the bulliest man in the

mountains, pard! He could run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and hold

more tangle-foot whisky without spilling it than any man in seventeen

counties. Put that in, pard—it’ll please the boys more than anything you

could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his mother.”

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“Never shook his mother?”

“That’s it—any of the boys will tell you so.”

“Well, but why should he shake her?”

“That’s what I say—but some people does.”

“Not people of any repute?”

“Well, some that averages pretty so-so.”

“In my opinion the man that would offer personal violence to his own

mother, ought to—”

“Cheese it, pard; you’ve banked your ball clean outside the string. What

I was a drivin’ at, was, that he never throwed off on his mother—don’t

you see? No indeedy. He give her a house to live in, and town lots, and

plenty of money; and he looked after her and took care of her all the

time; and when she was down with the small-pox I’m d——d if he didn’t set

up nights and nuss her himself! Beg your pardon for saying it, but it

hopped out too quick for yours truly.

“You’ve treated me like a gentleman, pard, and I ain’t the man to hurt

your feelings intentional. I think you’re white. I think you’re a square

man, pard. I like you, and I’ll lick any man that don’t. I’ll lick him

till he can’t tell himself from a last year’s corpse! Put it there!”

[Another fraternal hand-shake—and exit.]

The obsequies were all that “the boys” could desire. Such a marvel of

funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the

dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flags

drooping at half mast, the long, plodding procession of uniformed secret

societies, military battalions and fire companies, draped engines,

carriages of officials, and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted

multitudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs and windows; and for

years afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display in

Virginia was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw’s funeral.

Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a prominent

place at the funeral, and when the sermon was finished and the last

sentence of the prayer for the dead man’s soul ascended, he responded,

in a low voice, but with feelings:

“AMEN. No Irish need apply.”

As the bulk of the response was without apparent relevancy, it was

probably nothing more than a humble tribute to the memory of the friend

that was gone; for, as Scotty had once said, it was “his word.”

Scotty Briggs, in after days, achieved the distinction of becoming the

only convert to religion that was ever gathered from the Virginia

roughs; and it transpired that the man who had it in him to espouse the

quarrel of the weak out of inborn nobility of spirit was no mean timber

whereof to construct a Christian. The making him one did not warp his

generosity or diminish his courage; on the contrary it gave intelligent

direction to the one and a broader field to the other.

If his Sunday-school class progressed faster than the other classes, was

it matter for wonder? I think not. He talked to his pioneer small-fry in

a language they understood! It was my large privilege, a month before he

died, to hear him tell the beautiful story of Joseph and his brethren to

his class “without looking at the book.” I leave it to the reader to

fancy what it was like, as it fell, riddled with slang, from the lips of

that grave, earnest teacher, and was listened to by his little learners

with a consuming interest that showed that they were as unconscious as

he was that any violence was being done to the sacred proprieties!

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CHAPTER XLVIII.

The first twenty-six graves in the Virginia cemetery were occupied by

murdered men. So everybody said, so everybody believed, and so they will

always say and believe. The reason why there was so much slaughtering

done, was, that in a new mining district the rough element predominates,

and a person is not respected until he has “killed his man.” That was

the very expression used.

If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if he was

capable, honest, industrious, but—had he killed his man? If he had not,

he gravitated to his natural and proper position, that of a man of small

consequence; if he had, the cordiality of his reception was graduated

according to the number of his dead. It was tedious work struggling up

to a position of influence with bloodless hands; but when a man came

with the blood of half a dozen men on his soul, his worth was recognized

at once and his acquaintance sought.

In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, the chief

desperado, the chief gambler, and the saloon keeper, occupied the same

level in society, and it was the highest. The cheapest and easiest way

to become an influential man and be looked up to by the community at

large, was to stand behind a bar, wear a cluster-diamond pin, and sell

whisky. I am not sure but that the saloon-keeper held a shade higher

rank than any other member of society. His opinion had weight. It was

his privilege to say how the elections should go. No great movement

could succeed without the countenance and direction of the saloon-

keepers. It was a high favor when the chief saloon-keeper consented to

serve in the legislature or the board of aldermen.

Youthful ambition hardly aspired so much to the honors of the law, or

the army and navy as to the dignity of proprietorship in a saloon.

To be a saloon-keeper and kill a man was to be illustrious. Hence the

reader will not be surprised to learn that more than one man was killed

in Nevada under hardly the pretext of provocation, so impatient was the

slayer to achieve reputation and throw off the galling sense of being

held in indifferent repute by his associates. I knew two youths who

tried to “kill their men” for no other reason—and got killed themselves

for their pains. “There goes the man that killed Bill Adams” was higher

praise and a sweeter sound in the ears of this sort of people than any

other speech that admiring lips could utter.

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The men who murdered Virginia’s original twenty-six cemetery-occupants

were never punished. Why? Because Alfred the Great, when he invented

trial by jury and knew that he had admirably framed it to secure justice

in his age of the world, was not aware that in the nineteenth century

the condition of things would be so entirely changed that unless he rose

from the grave and altered the jury plan to meet the emergency, it would

prove the most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating justice

that human wisdom could contrive. For how could he imagine that we

simpletons would go on using his jury plan after circumstances had

stripped it of its usefulness, any more than he could imagine that we

would go on using his candle-clock after we had invented chronometers?

In his day news could not travel fast, and hence he could easily find a

jury of honest, intelligent men who had not heard of the case they were

called to try—but in our day of telegraphs and newspapers his plan

compels us to swear in juries composed of fools and rascals, because the

system rigidly excludes honest men and men of brains.

I remember one of those sorrowful farces, in Virginia, which we call a

jury trial. A noted desperado killed Mr. B., a good citizen, in the most

wanton and cold-blooded way. Of course the papers were full of it, and

all men capable of reading, read about it. And of course all men not

deaf and dumb and idiotic, talked about it. A jury-list was made out,

and Mr. B. L., a prominent banker and a valued citizen, was questioned

precisely as he would have been questioned in any court in America:

“Have you heard of this homicide?”

“Yes.”

“Have you held conversations upon the subject?”

“Yes.”

“Have you formed or expressed opinions about it?”

“Yes.”

“Have you read the newspaper accounts of it?”

“Yes.”

“We do not want you.”

A minister, intelligent, esteemed, and greatly respected; a merchant of

high character and known probity; a mining superintendent of

intelligence and unblemished reputation; a quartz mill owner of

excellent standing, were all questioned in the same way, and all set

aside. Each said the public talk and the newspaper reports had not so

biased his mind but that sworn testimony would overthrow his previously

formed opinions and enable him to render a verdict without prejudice and

in accordance with the facts. But of course such men could not be

trusted with the case. Ignoramuses alone could mete out unsullied

justice.

When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of twelve men

was impaneled—a jury who swore they had neither heard, read, talked

about nor expressed an opinion concerning a murder which the very cattle

in the corrals, the Indians in the sage-brush and the stones in the

streets were cognizant of! It was a jury composed of two desperadoes,

two low beer-house politicians, three bar-keepers, two ranchmen who

could not read, and three dull, stupid, human donkeys! It actually came

out afterward, that one of these latter thought that incest and arson

were the same thing.

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

expect?

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and a premium

upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is a shame that we must

continue to use a worthless system because it _was_ good a thousand

years ago. In this age, when a gentleman of high social standing,

intelligence and probity, swears that testimony given under solemn oath

will outweigh, with him, street talk and newspaper reports based upon

mere hearsay, he is worth a hundred jurymen who will swear to their own

ignorance and stupidity, and justice would be far safer in his hands

than in theirs. Why could not the jury law be so altered as to give men

of brains and honesty and _equal chance_ with fools and miscreants? Is

it right to show the present favoritism to one class of men and inflict

a disability on another, in a land whose boast is that all its citizens

are free and equal? I am a candidate for the legislature. I desire to

tamper with the jury law. I wish to so alter it as to put a premium on

intelligence and character, and close the jury box against idiots,

blacklegs, and people who do not read newspapers. But no doubt I shall

be defeated—every effort I make to save the country “misses fire.”

My idea, when I began this chapter, was to say something about

desperadoism in the “flush times” of Nevada. To attempt a portrayal of

that era and that land, and leave out the blood and carnage, would be

like portraying Mormondom and leaving out polygamy. The desperado

stalked the streets with a swagger graded according to the number of his

homicides, and a nod of recognition from him was sufficient to make a

humble admirer happy for the rest of the day. The deference that was

paid to a desperado of wide reputation, and who “kept his private

graveyard,” as the phrase went, was marked, and cheerfully accorded.

When he moved along the sidewalk in his excessively long-tailed frock-

coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hat tipped

over left eye, the small-fry roughs made room for his majesty; when he

entered the restaurant, the waiters deserted bankers and merchants to

overwhelm him with obsequious service; when he shouldered his way to a

bar, the shouldered parties wheeled indignantly, recognized him,

and—apologized.

They got a look in return that froze their marrow, and by that time a

curled and breast-pinned bar keeper was beaming over the counter, proud

of the established acquaintanceship that permitted such a familiar form

of speech as:

“How’re ye, Billy, old fel? Glad to see you. What’ll you take—the old

thing?”

The “old thing” meant his customary drink, of course.

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The best known names in the Territory of Nevada were those belonging to

these long-tailed heroes of the revolver. Orators, Governors,

capitalists and leaders of the legislature enjoyed a degree of fame, but

it seemed local and meagre when contrasted with the fame of such men as

Sam Brown, Jack Williams, Billy Mulligan, Farmer Pease, Sugarfoot Mike,

Pock Marked Jake, El Dorado Johnny, Jack McNabb, Joe McGee, Jack Harris,

Six-fingered Pete, etc., etc. There was a long list of them. They were

brave, reckless men, and traveled with their lives in their hands. To

give them their due, they did their killing principally among

themselves, and seldom molested peaceable citizens, for they considered

it small credit to add to their trophies so cheap a bauble as the death

of a man who was “not on the shoot,” as they phrased it. They killed

each other on slight provocation, and hoped and expected to be killed

themselves—for they held it almost shame to die otherwise than “with

their boots on,” as they expressed it.

I remember an instance of a desperado’s contempt for such small game as

a private citizen’s life. I was taking a late supper in a restaurant one

night, with two reporters and a little printer named—Brown, for

instance—any name will do. Presently a stranger with a long-tailed coat

on came in, and not noticing Brown’s hat, which was lying in a chair,

sat down on it. Little Brown sprang up and became abusive in a moment.

The stranger smiled, smoothed out the hat, and offered it to Brown with

profuse apologies couched in caustic sarcasm, and begged Brown not to

destroy him. Brown threw off his coat and challenged the man to

fight—abused him, threatened him, impeached his courage, and urged and

even implored him to fight; and in the meantime the smiling stranger

placed himself under our protection in mock distress. But presently he

assumed a serious tone, and said:

“Very well, gentlemen, if we must fight, we must, I suppose. But don’t

rush into danger and then say I gave you no warning. I am more than a

match for all of you when I get started. I will give you proofs, and

then if my friend here still insists, I will try to accommodate him.”

The table we were sitting at was about five feet long, and unusually

cumbersome and heavy. He asked us to put our hands on the dishes and

hold them in their places a moment—one of them was a large oval dish

with a portly roast on it. Then he sat down, tilted up one end of the

table, set two of the legs on his knees, took the end of the table

between his teeth, took his hands away, and pulled down with his teeth

till the table came up to a level position, dishes and all! He said he

could lift a keg of nails with his teeth. He picked up a common glass

tumbler and bit a semi-circle out of it. Then he opened his bosom and

showed us a net-work of knife and bullet scars; showed us more on his

arms and face, and said he believed he had bullets enough in his body to

make a pig of lead. He was armed to the teeth. He closed with the remark

that he was Mr.——of Cariboo—a celebrated name whereat we shook in our

shoes. I would publish the name, but for the suspicion that he might

come and carve me. He finally inquired if Brown still thirsted for

blood. Brown turned the thing over in his mind a moment, and then—asked

him to supper.

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With the permission of the reader, I will group together, in the next

chapter, some samples of life in our small mountain village in the old

days of desperadoism. I was there at the time. The reader will observe

peculiarities in our official society; and he will observe also, an

instance of how, in new countries, murders breed murders.

CHAPTER XLIX.

An extract or two from the newspapers of the day will furnish a

photograph that can need no embellishment:

FATAL SHOOTING AFFRAY.—An affray occurred, last evening, in a billiard

saloon on C street, between Deputy Marshal Jack Williams and Wm. Brown,

which resulted in the immediate death of the latter. There had been some

difficulty between the parties for several months.

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

Officer GEO. BIRDSALL, sworn, says:—I was told Wm. Brown was drunk and

was looking for Jack Williams; so soon as I heard that I started for the

parties to prevent a collision; went into the billiard saloon; saw Billy

Brown running around, saying if anybody had anything against him to show

cause; he was talking in a boisterous manner, and officer Perry took him

to the other end of the room to talk to him; Brown came back to me;

remarked to me that he thought he was as good as anybody, and knew how

to take care of himself; he passed by me and went to the bar; don’t know

whether he drank or not; Williams was at the end of the billiard-table,

next to the stairway; Brown, after going to the bar, came back and said

he was as good as any man in the world; he had then walked out to the

end of the first billiard-table from the bar; I moved closer to them,

supposing there would be a fight; as Brown drew his pistol I caught hold

of it; he had fired one shot at Williams; don’t know the effect of it;

caught hold of him with one hand, and took hold of the pistol and turned

it up; think he fired once after I caught hold of the pistol; I wrenched

the pistol from him; walked to the end of the billiard-table and told a

party that I had Brown’s pistol, and to stop shooting; I think four

shots were fired in all; after walking out, Mr. Foster remarked that

Brown was shot dead.

Oh, there was no excitement about it—he merely “remarked” the small

circumstance!

Four months later the following item appeared in the same paper (the

Enterprise). In this item the name of one of the city officers above

referred to (Deputy Marshal Jack Williams) occurs again:

ROBBERY AND DESPERATE AFFRAY.—On Tuesday night, a German named Charles

Hurtzal, engineer in a mill at Silver City, came to this place, and

visited the hurdy-gurdy house on B street. The music, dancing and

Teutonic maidens awakened memories of Faderland until our German friend

was carried away with rapture. He evidently had money, and was spending

if freely. Late in the evening Jack Williams and Andy Blessington

invited him down stairs to take a cup of coffee. Williams proposed a

game of cards and went up stairs to procure a deck, but not finding any

returned. On the stairway he met the German, and drawing his pistol

knocked him down and rifled his pockets of some seventy dollars. Hurtzal

dared give no alarm, as he was told, with a pistol at his head, if he

made any noise or exposed them, they would blow his brains out. So

effectually was he frightened that he made no complaint, until his

friends forced him. Yesterday a warrant was issued, but the culprits had

disappeared.

This efficient city officer, Jack Williams, had the common reputation of

being a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. It was said that he had

several times drawn his revolver and levied money contributions on

citizens at dead of night in the public streets of Virginia.

Five months after the above item appeared, Williams was assassinated

while sitting at a card table one night; a gun was thrust through the

crack of the door and Williams dropped from his chair riddled with

balls. It was said, at the time, that Williams had been for some time

aware that a party of his own sort (desperadoes) had sworn away his

life; and it was generally believed among the people that Williams’s

friends and enemies would make the assassination memorable—and useful,

too—by a wholesale destruction of each other.

It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull during the next

twenty-four hours, for within that time a woman was killed by a pistol

shot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and a man named Reeder was

also disposed of permanently. Some matters in the Enterprise account of

the killing of Reeder are worth noting—especially the accommodating

complaisance of a Virginia justice of the peace. The italics in the

following narrative are mine:

MORE CUTTING AND SHOOTING.—The devil seems to have again broken loose in

our town. Pistols and guns explode and knives gleam in our streets as in

early times. When there has been a long season of quiet, people are slow

to wet their hands in blood; but once blood is spilled, cutting and

shooting come easy. Night before last Jack Williams was assassinated,

and yesterday forenoon we had more bloody work, growing out of the

killing of Williams, and on the same street in which he met his death.

It appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of Williams, and George Gumbert

were talking, at the meat market of the latter, about the killing of

Williams the previous night, when Reeder said it was a most cowardly act

to shoot a man in such a way, giving him “no show.” Gumbert said that

Williams had “as good a show as he gave Billy Brown,” meaning the man

killed by Williams last March. Reeder said it was a d——d lie, that

Williams had no show at all. At this, Gumbert drew a knife and stabbed

Reeder, cutting him in two places in the back. One stroke of the knife

cut into the sleeve of Reeder’s coat and passed downward in a slanting

direction through his clothing, and entered his body at the small of the

back; another blow struck more squarely, and made a much more dangerous

wound. Gumbert gave himself up to the officers of justice, and was

shortly after discharged by Justice Atwill, on his own recognizance, to

appear for trial at six o’clock in the evening. In the meantime Reeder

had been taken into the office of Dr. Owens, where his wounds were

properly dressed. One of his wounds was considered quite dangerous, and

it was thought by many that it would prove fatal. But being considerably

under the influence of liquor, Reeder did not feel his wounds as he

otherwise would, and he got up and went into the street. He went to the

meat market and renewed his quarrel with Gumbert, threatening his life.

Friends tried to interfere to put a stop to the quarrel and get the

parties away from each other. In the Fashion Saloon Reeder made threats

against the life of Gumbert, saying he would kill him, and it is said

that he requested the officers not to arrest Gumbert, as he intended to

kill him. After these threats Gumbert went off and procured a double-

barreled shot gun, loaded with buck-shot or revolver balls, and went

after Reeder. Two or three persons were assisting him along the street,

trying to get him home, and had him just in front of the store of

Klopstock & Harris, when Gumbert came across toward him from the

opposite side of the street with his gun. He came up within about ten or

fifteen feet of Reeder, and called out to those with him to “look out!

get out of the way!” and they had only time to heed the warning, when he

fired. Reeder was at the time attempting to screen himself behind a

large cask, which stood against the awning post of Klopstock & Harris’s

store, but some of the balls took effect in the lower part of his

breast, and he reeled around forward and fell in front of the cask.

Gumbert then raised his gun and fired the second barrel, which missed

Reeder and entered the ground. At the time that this occurred, there

were a great many persons on the street in the vicinity, and a number of

them called out to Gumbert, when they saw him raise his gun, to “hold

on,” and “don’t shoot!” The cutting took place about ten o’clock and the

shooting about twelve. After the shooting the street was instantly

crowded with the inhabitants of that part of the town, some appearing

much excited and laughing—declaring that it looked like the “good old

times of ‘60.” Marshal Perry and officer Birdsall were near when the

shooting occurred, and Gumbert was immediately arrested and his gun

taken from him, when he was marched off to jail. Many persons who were

attracted to the spot where this bloody work had just taken place,

looked bewildered and seemed to be asking themselves what was to happen

next, appearing in doubt as to whether the killing mania had reached its

climax, or whether we were to turn in and have a grand killing spell,

shooting whoever might have given us offence. It was whispered around

that it was not all over yet—five or six more were to be killed before

night. Reeder was taken to the Virginia City Hotel, and doctors called

in to examine his wounds. They found that two or three balls had entered

his right side; one of them appeared to have passed through the

substance of the lungs, while another passed into the liver. Two balls

were also found to have struck one of his legs. As some of the balls

struck the cask, the wounds in Reeder’s leg were probably from these,

glancing downwards, though they might have been caused by the second

shot fired. After being shot, Reeder said when he got on his

feet—smiling as he spoke—“It will take better shooting than that to kill

me.” The doctors consider it almost impossible for him to recover, but

as he has an excellent constitution he may survive, notwithstanding the

number and dangerous character of the wounds he has received. The town

appears to be perfectly quiet at present, as though the late stormy

times had cleared our moral atmosphere; but who can tell in what quarter

clouds are lowering or plots ripening?

Reeder—or at least what was left of him—survived his wounds two days!

Nothing was ever done with Gumbert.

Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know what a

palladium is, having never seen a palladium, but it is a good thing no

doubt at any rate. Not less than a hundred men have been murdered in

Nevada—perhaps I would be within bounds if I said three hundred—and as

far as I can learn, only two persons have suffered the death penalty

there. However, four or five who had no money and no political influence

have been punished by imprisonment—one languished in prison as much as

eight months, I think. However, I do not desire to be extravagant—it may

have been less.

However, one prophecy was verified, at any rate. It was asserted by the

desperadoes that one of their brethren (Joe McGee, a special policeman)

was known to be the conspirator chosen by lot to assassinate Williams;

and they also asserted that doom had been pronounced against McGee, and

that he would be assassinated in exactly the same manner that had been

adopted for the destruction of Williams—a prophecy which came true a

year later. After twelve months of distress (for McGee saw a fancied

assassin in every man that approached him), he made the last of many

efforts to get out of the country unwatched. He went to Carson and sat

down in a saloon to wait for the stage—it would leave at four in the

morning. But as the night waned and the crowd thinned, he grew uneasy,

and told the bar-keeper that assassins were on his track. The bar-keeper

told him to stay in the middle of the room, then, and not go near the

door, or the window by the stove. But a fatal fascination seduced him to

the neighborhood of the stove every now and then, and repeatedly the

bar-keeper brought him back to the middle of the room and warned him to

remain there. But he could not. At three in the morning he again

returned to the stove and sat down by a stranger. Before the bar-keeper

could get to him with another warning whisper, some one outside fired

through the window and riddled McGee’s breast with slugs, killing him

almost instantly. By the same discharge the stranger at McGee’s side

also received attentions which proved fatal in the course of two or

three days.

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CHAPTER L.

These murder and jury statistics remind me of a certain very

extraordinary trial and execution of twenty years ago; it is a scrap of

history familiar to all old Californians, and worthy to be known by

other peoples of the earth that love simple, straightforward justice

unencumbered with nonsense. I would apologize for this digression but

for the fact that the information I am about to offer is apology enough

in itself. And since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is as well

to eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their growing irksome.

Capt. Ned Blakely—that name will answer as well as any other fictitious

one (for he was still with the living at last accounts, and may not

desire to be famous)—sailed ships out of the harbor of San Francisco for

many years. He was a stalwart, warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who had

been a sailor nearly fifty years—a sailor from early boyhood. He was a

rough, honest creature, full of pluck, and just as full of hard-headed

simplicity, too. He hated trifling conventionalities—“business” was the

word, with him. He had all a sailor’s vindictiveness against the quips

and quirks of the law, and steadfastly believed that the first and last

aim and object of the law and lawyers was to defeat justice.

He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of a guano ship. He had a

fine crew, but his negro mate was his pet—on him he had for years

lavished his admiration and esteem. It was Capt. Ned’s first voyage to

the Chinchas, but his fame had gone before him—the fame of being a man

who would fight at the dropping of a handkerchief, when imposed upon,

and would stand no nonsense. It was a fame well earned. Arrived in the

islands, he found that the staple of conversation was the exploits of

one Bill Noakes, a bully, the mate of a trading ship. This man had

created a small reign of terror there. At nine o’clock at night, Capt.

Ned, all alone, was pacing his deck in the starlight. A form ascended

the side, and approached him. Capt. Ned said:

“Who goes there?”

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“I’m Bill Noakes, the best man in the islands.”

“What do you want aboard this ship?”

“I’ve heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us is a better man than

’tother—I’ll know which, before I go ashore.”

“You’ve come to the right shop—I’m your man. I’ll learn you to come

aboard this ship without an _in_vite.”

He seized Noakes, backed him against the mainmast, pounded his face to a

pulp, and then threw him overboard.

Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next night, got the pulp

renewed, and went overboard head first, as before.

He was satisfied.

A week after this, while Noakes was carousing with a sailor crowd on

shore, at noonday, Capt. Ned’s colored mate came along, and Noakes tried

to pick a quarrel with him. The negro evaded the trap, and tried to get

away. Noakes followed him up; the negro began to run; Noakes fired on

him with a revolver and killed him. Half a dozen sea-captains witnessed

the whole affair. Noakes retreated to the small after-cabin of his ship,

with two other bullies, and gave out that death would be the portion of

any man that intruded there. There was no attempt made to follow the

villains; there was no disposition to do it, and indeed very little

thought of such an enterprise. There were no courts and no officers;

there was no government; the islands belonged to Peru, and Peru was far

away; she had no official representative on the ground; and neither had

any other nation.

However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head about such things. They

concerned him not. He was boiling with rage and furious for justice. At

nine o’clock at night he loaded a double-barreled gun with slugs, fished

out a pair of handcuffs, got a ship’s lantern, summoned his

quartermaster, and went ashore. He said:

“Do you see that ship there at the dock?”

“Ay-ay, sir.”

“It’s the Venus.”

“Ay-ay, sir.”

“You—you know _me_.”

“Ay-ay, sir.”

“Very well, then. Take the lantern. Carry it just under your chin. I’ll

walk behind you and rest this gun-barrel on your shoulder, p’inting

forward—so. Keep your lantern well up so’s I can see things ahead of you

good. I’m going to march in on Noakes—and take him—and jug the other

chaps. If you flinch—well, you know _me_.”

“Ay-ay, sir.”

In this order they filed aboard softly, arrived at Noakes’s den, the

quartermaster pushed the door open, and the lantern revealed the three

desperadoes sitting on the floor. Capt. Ned said:

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“I’m Ned Blakely. I’ve got you under fire. Don’t you move without

orders—any of you. You two kneel down in the corner; faces to the

wall—now. Bill Noakes, put these handcuffs on; now come up close.

Quartermaster, fasten ’em. All right. Don’t stir, sir. Quartermaster,

put the key in the outside of the door. Now, men, I’m going to lock you

two in; and if you try to burst through this door—well, you’ve heard of

_me_. Bill Noakes, fall in ahead, and march. All set. Quartermaster,

lock the door.”

Noakes spent the night on board Blakely’s ship, a prisoner under strict

guard. Early in the morning Capt. Ned called in all the sea-captains in

the harbor and invited them, with nautical ceremony, to be present on

board his ship at nine o’clock to witness the hanging of Noakes at the

yard-arm!

“What! The man has not been tried.”

“Of course he hasn’t. But didn’t he kill the nigger?”

“Certainly he did; but you are not thinking of hanging him without a

trial?”

“_Trial_! What do I want to try him for, if he killed the nigger?”

“Oh, Capt. Ned, this will _never_ do. Think how it will sound.”

“Sound be hanged! Didn’t he kill the nigger?”

“Certainly, certainly, Capt. Ned,—nobody denies that,—but—”

“Then I’m _going to hang him_, that’s all. Everybody I’ve talked to

talks just the same way you do. Everybody says he killed the nigger,

everybody knows he killed the nigger, and yet every lubber of you wants

him _tried_ for it. I don’t understand such bloody foolishness as that.

_Tried_! Mind you, I don’t object to trying him, if it’s got to be done

to give satisfaction; and I’ll be there, and chip in and help, too; but

put it off till afternoon—put it off till afternoon, for I’ll have my

hands middling full till after the burying—”

“Why, what do you mean? Are you going to _hang_ him any how—and try him

afterward?”

“Didn’t I say I was going to _hang_ him? I never saw such people as you.

What’s the difference? You ask a favor, and then you ain’t satisfied

when you get it. Before or after’s all one—_you_ know how the trial will

go. He killed the nigger. Say—I must be going. If your mate would like

to come to the hanging, fetch him along. I like him.”

There was a stir in the camp. The captains came in a body and pleaded

with Capt. Ned not to do this rash thing. They promised that they would

create a court composed of captains of the best character; they would

empanel a jury; they would conduct everything in a way becoming the

serious nature of the business in hand, and give the case an impartial

hearing and the accused a fair trial. And they said it would be murder,

and punishable by the American courts if he persisted and hung the

accused on his ship. They pleaded hard. Capt. Ned said:

“Gentlemen, I’m not stubborn and I’m not unreasonable. I’m always

willing to do just as near right as I can. How long will it take?”

“Probably only a little while.”

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

“_If_ he is proven guilty he shall be hanged without unnecessary delay.”

“If he’s proven guilty. Great Neptune, _ain’t_ he guilty? This beats my

time. Why you all _know_ he’s guilty.”

But at last they satisfied him that they were projecting nothing

underhanded. Then he said:

“Well, all right. You go on and try him and I’ll go down and overhaul

his conscience and prepare him to go—like enough he needs it, and I

don’t want to send him off without a show for hereafter.”

This was another obstacle. They finally convinced him that it was

necessary to have the accused in court. Then they said they would send a

guard to bring him.

“No, sir, I prefer to fetch him myself—he don’t get out of _my_ hands.

Besides, I’ve got to go to the ship to get a rope, anyway.”

The court assembled with due ceremony, empaneled a jury, and presently

Capt. Ned entered, leading the prisoner with one hand and carrying a

Bible and a rope in the other. He seated himself by the side of his

captive and told the court to “up anchor and make sail.” Then he turned

a searching eye on the jury, and detected Noakes’s friends, the two

bullies.

He strode over and said to them confidentially:

“You’re here to interfere, you see. Now you vote right, do you hear?—or

else there’ll be a double-barreled inquest here when this trial’s off,

and your remainders will go home in a couple of baskets.”

The caution was not without fruit. The jury was a unit—the verdict.

“Guilty.”

Capt. Ned sprung to his feet and said:

“Come along—you’re my meat _now_, my lad, anyway. Gentlemen you’ve done

yourselves proud. I invite you all to come and see that I do it all

straight. Follow me to the canyon, a mile above here.”

The court informed him that a sheriff had been appointed to do the

hanging, and—

Capt. Ned’s patience was at an end. His wrath was boundless. The subject

of a sheriff was judiciously dropped.

When the crowd arrived at the canyon, Capt. Ned climbed a tree and

arranged the halter, then came down and noosed his man. He opened his

Bible, and laid aside his hat. Selecting a chapter at random, he read it

through, in a deep bass voice and with sincere solemnity. Then he said:

“Lad, you are about to go aloft and give an account of yourself; and the

lighter a man’s manifest is, as far as sin’s concerned, the better for

him. Make a clean breast, man, and carry a log with you that’ll bear

inspection. You killed the nigger?”

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No reply. A long pause.

The captain read another chapter, pausing, from time to time, to impress

the effect. Then he talked an earnest, persuasive sermon to him, and

ended by repeating the question:

“Did you kill the nigger?”

No reply—other than a malignant scowl. The captain now read the first

and second chapters of Genesis, with deep feeling—paused a moment,

closed the book reverently, and said with a perceptible savor of

satisfaction:

“There. Four chapters. There’s few that would have took the pains with

you that I have.”

Then he swung up the condemned, and made the rope fast; stood by and

timed him half an hour with his watch, and then delivered the body to

the court. A little after, as he stood contemplating the motionless

figure, a doubt came into his face; evidently he felt a twinge of

conscience—a misgiving—and he said with a sigh:

“Well, p’raps I ought to burnt him, maybe. But I was trying to do for

the best.”

When the history of this affair reached California (it was in the “early

days”) it made a deal of talk, but did not diminish the captain’s

popularity in any degree. It increased it, indeed. California had a

population then that “inflicted” justice after a fashion that was

simplicity and primitiveness itself, and could therefore admire

appreciatively when the same fashion was followed elsewhere.

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CHAPTER LI.

Vice flourished luxuriantly during the hey-day of our “flush times.” The

saloons were overburdened with custom; so were the police courts, the

gambling dens, the brothels and the jails—unfailing signs of high

prosperity in a mining region—in any region for that matter. Is it not

so? A crowded police court docket is the surest of all signs that trade

is brisk and money plenty. Still, there is one other sign; it comes

last, but when it does come it establishes beyond cavil that the “flush

times” are at the flood. This is the birth of the “literary” paper. The

Weekly Occidental, “devoted to literature,” made its appearance in

Virginia. All the literary people were engaged to write for it. Mr. F.

was to edit it. He was a felicitous skirmisher with a pen, and a man who

could say happy things in a crisp, neat way. Once, while editor of the

_Union_, he had disposed of a labored, incoherent, two-column attack

made upon him by a contemporary, with a single line, which, at first

glance, seemed to contain a solemn and tremendous compliment—viz.: “THE

LOGIC OF OUR ADVERSARY RESEMBLES THE PEACE OF GOD,”—and left it to the

reader’s memory and after-thought to invest the remark with another and

“more different” meaning by supplying for himself and at his own leisure

the rest of the Scripture—“_in that it passeth understanding._” He once

said of a little, half-starved, wayside community that had no

subsistence except what they could get by preying upon chance passengers

who stopped over with them a day when traveling by the overland stage,

that in their Church service they had altered the Lord’s Prayer to read:

“Give us this day our daily stranger!”

We expected great things of the Occidental. Of course it could not get

along without an original novel, and so we made arrangements to hurl

into the work the full strength of the company. Mrs. F. was an able

romancist of the ineffable school—I know no other name to apply to a

school whose heroes are all dainty and all perfect. She wrote the

opening chapter, and introduced a lovely blonde simpleton who talked

nothing but pearls and poetry and who was virtuous to the verge of

eccentricity. She also introduced a young French Duke of aggravated

refinement, in love with the blonde. Mr. F. followed next week, with a

brilliant lawyer who set about getting the Duke’s estates into trouble,

and a sparkling young lady of high society who fell to fascinating the

Duke and impairing the appetite of the blonde. Mr. D., a dark and bloody

editor of one of the dailies, followed Mr. F., the third week,

introducing a mysterious Roscicrucian who transmuted metals, held

consultations with the devil in a cave at dead of night, and cast the

horoscope of the several heroes and heroines in such a way as to provide

plenty of trouble for their future careers and breed a solemn and awful

public interest in the novel. He also introduced a cloaked and masked

melodramatic miscreant, put him on a salary and set him on the midnight

track of the Duke with a poisoned dagger. He also created an Irish

coachman with a rich brogue and placed him in the service of the

society-young-lady with an ulterior mission to carry billet-doux to the

Duke.

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About this time there arrived in Virginia a dissolute stranger with a

literary turn of mind—rather seedy he was, but very quiet and

unassuming; almost diffident, indeed. He was so gentle, and his manners

were so pleasing and kindly, whether he was sober or intoxicated, that

he made friends of all who came in contact with him. He applied for

literary work, offered conclusive evidence that he wielded an easy and

practiced pen, and so Mr. F. engaged him at once to help write the

novel. His chapter was to follow Mr. D.’s, and mine was to come next.

Now what does this fellow do but go off and get drunk and then proceed

to his quarters and set to work with his imagination in a state of

chaos, and that chaos in a condition of extravagant activity. The result

may be guessed. He scanned the chapters of his predecessors, found

plenty of heroes and heroines already created, and was satisfied with

them; he decided to introduce no more; with all the confidence that

whisky inspires and all the easy complacency it gives to its servant, he

then launched himself lovingly into his work: he married the coachman to

the society-young-lady for the sake of the scandal; married the Duke to

the blonde’s stepmother, for the sake of the sensation; stopped the

desperado’s salary; created a misunderstanding between the devil and the

Roscicrucian; threw the Duke’s property into the wicked lawyer’s hands;

made the lawyer’s upbraiding conscience drive him to drink, thence to

delirium tremens, thence to suicide; broke the coachman’s neck; let his

widow succumb to contumely, neglect, poverty and consumption; caused the

blonde to drown herself, leaving her clothes on the bank with the

customary note pinned to them forgiving the Duke and hoping he would be

happy; revealed to the Duke, by means of the usual strawberry mark on

left arm, that he had married his own long-lost mother and destroyed his

long-lost sister; instituted the proper and necessary suicide of the

Duke and the Duchess in order to compass poetical justice; opened the

earth and let the Roscicrucian through, accompanied with the accustomed

smoke and thunder and smell of brimstone, and finished with the promise

that in the next chapter, after holding a general inquest, he would take

up the surviving character of the novel and tell what became of the

devil!

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It read with singular smoothness, and with a “dead” earnestness that was

funny enough to suffocate a body. But there was war when it came in. The

other novelists were furious. The mild stranger, not yet more than half

sober, stood there, under a scathing fire of vituperation, meek and

bewildered, looking from one to another of his assailants, and wondering

what he could have done to invoke such a storm. When a lull came at

last, he said his say gently and appealingly—said he did not rightly

remember what he had written, but was sure he had tried to do the best

he could, and knew his object had been to make the novel not only

pleasant and plausible but instructive and—

The bombardment began again. The novelists assailed his ill-chosen

adjectives and demolished them with a storm of denunciation and

ridicule. And so the siege went on. Every time the stranger tried to

appease the enemy he only made matters worse. Finally he offered to

rewrite the chapter. This arrested hostilities. The indignation

gradually quieted down, peace reigned again and the sufferer retired in

safety and got him to his own citadel.

But on the way thither the evil angel tempted him and he got drunk

again. And again his imagination went mad. He led the heroes and

heroines a wilder dance than ever; and yet all through it ran that same

convincing air of honesty and earnestness that had marked his first

work. He got the characters into the most extraordinary situations, put

them through the most surprising performances, and made them talk the

strangest talk! But the chapter cannot be described. It was

symmetrically crazy; it was artistically absurd; and it had explanatory

footnotes that were fully as curious as the text. I remember one of the

“situations,” and will offer it as an example of the whole. He altered

the character of the brilliant lawyer, and made him a great-hearted,

splendid fellow; gave him fame and riches, and set his age at thirty-

three years. Then he made the blonde discover, through the help of the

Roscicrucian and the melodramatic miscreant, that while the Duke loved

her money ardently and wanted it, he secretly felt a sort of leaning

toward the society-young-lady. Stung to the quick, she tore her

affections from him and bestowed them with tenfold power upon the

lawyer, who responded with consuming zeal. But the parents would none of

it. What they wanted in the family was a Duke; and a Duke they were

determined to have; though they confessed that next to the Duke the

lawyer had their preference. Necessarily the blonde now went into a

decline. The parents were alarmed. They pleaded with her to marry the

Duke, but she steadfastly refused, and pined on. Then they laid a plan.

They told her to wait a year and a day, and if at the end of that time

she still felt that she could not marry the Duke, she might marry the

lawyer with their full consent. The result was as they had foreseen:

gladness came again, and the flush of returning health. Then the parents

took the next step in their scheme. They had the family physician

recommend a long sea voyage and much land travel for the thorough

restoration of the blonde’s strength; and they invited the Duke to be of

the party. They judged that the Duke’s constant presence and the

lawyer’s protracted absence would do the rest—for they did not invite

the lawyer.

So they set sail in a steamer for America—and the third day out, when

their sea-sickness called truce and permitted them to take their first

meal at the public table, behold there sat the lawyer! The Duke and

party made the best of an awkward situation; the voyage progressed, and

the vessel neared America.

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But, by and by, two hundred miles off New Bedford, the ship took fire;

she burned to the water’s edge; of all her crew and passengers, only

thirty were saved. They floated about the sea half an afternoon and all

night long. Among them were our friends. The lawyer, by superhuman

exertions, had saved the blonde and her parents, swimming back and forth

two hundred yards and bringing one each time—(the girl first). The Duke

had saved himself. In the morning two whale ships arrived on the scene

and sent their boats. The weather was stormy and the embarkation was

attended with much confusion and excitement. The lawyer did his duty

like a man; helped his exhausted and insensible blonde, her parents and

some others into a boat (the Duke helped himself in); then a child fell

overboard at the other end of the raft and the lawyer rushed thither and

helped half a dozen people fish it out, under the stimulus of its

mother’s screams. Then he ran back—a few seconds too late—the blonde’s

boat was under way. So he had to take the other boat, and go to the

other ship. The storm increased and drove the vessels out of sight of

each other—drove them whither it would.

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When it calmed, at the end of three days, the blonde’s ship was seven

hundred miles north of Boston and the other about seven hundred south of

that port. The blonde’s captain was bound on a whaling cruise in the

North Atlantic and could not go back such a distance or make a port

without orders; such being nautical law. The lawyer’s captain was to

cruise in the North Pacific, and _he_ could not go back or make a port

without orders. All the lawyer’s money and baggage were in the blonde’s

boat and went to the blonde’s ship—so his captain made him work his

passage as a common sailor. When both ships had been cruising nearly a

year, the one was off the coast of Greenland and the other in Behring’s

Strait. The blonde had long ago been well-nigh persuaded that her lawyer

had been washed overboard and lost just before the whale ships reached

the raft, and now, under the pleadings of her parents and the Duke she

was at last beginning to nerve herself for the doom of the covenant, and

prepare for the hated marriage.

But she would not yield a day before the date set. The weeks dragged on,

the time narrowed, orders were given to deck the ship for the wedding—a

wedding at sea among icebergs and walruses. Five days more and all would

be over. So the blonde reflected, with a sigh and a tear. Oh where was

her true love—and why, why did he not come and save her? At that moment

he was lifting his harpoon to strike a whale in Behring’s Strait, five

thousand miles away, by the way of the Arctic Ocean, or twenty thousand

by the way of the Horn—that was the reason. He struck, but not with

perfect aim—his foot slipped and he fell in the whale’s mouth and went

down his throat. He was insensible five days. Then he came to himself

and heard voices; daylight was streaming through a hole cut in the

whale’s roof. He climbed out and astonished the sailors who were

hoisting blubber up a ship’s side. He recognized the vessel, flew

aboard, surprised the wedding party at the altar and exclaimed:

“Stop the proceedings—I’m here! Come to my arms, my own!”

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There were foot-notes to this extravagant piece of literature wherein

the author endeavored to show that the whole thing was within the

possibilities; he said he got the incident of the whale traveling from

Behring’s Strait to the coast of Greenland, five thousand miles in five

days, through the Arctic Ocean, from Charles Reade’s “Love Me Little

Love Me Long,” and considered that that established the fact that the

thing could be done; and he instanced Jonah’s adventure as proof that a

man could live in a whale’s belly, and added that if a preacher could

stand it three days a lawyer could surely stand it five!

There was a fiercer storm than ever in the editorial sanctum now, and

the stranger was peremptorily discharged, and his manuscript flung at

his head. But he had already delayed things so much that there was not

time for some one else to rewrite the chapter, and so the paper came out

without any novel in it. It was but a feeble, struggling, stupid

journal, and the absence of the novel probably shook public confidence;

at any rate, before the first side of the next issue went to press, the

Weekly Occidental died as peacefully as an infant.

An effort was made to resurrect it, with the proposed advantage of a

telling new title, and Mr. F. said that The _Phenix_ would be just the

name for it, because it would give the idea of a resurrection from its

dead ashes in a new and undreamed of condition of splendor; but some

low- priced smarty on one of the dailies suggested that we call it the

_Lazarus_; and inasmuch as the people were not profound in Scriptural

matters but thought the resurrected Lazarus and the dilapidated

mendicant that begged in the rich man’s gateway were one and the same

person, the name became the laughing stock of the town, and killed the

paper for good and all.

I was sorry enough, for I was very proud of being connected with a

literary paper—prouder than I have ever been of anything since, perhaps.

I had written some rhymes for it—poetry I considered it—and it was a

great grief to me that the production was on the “first side” of the

issue that was not completed, and hence did not see the light. But time

brings its revenges—I can put it in here; it will answer in place of a

tear dropped to the memory of the lost Occidental. The idea (not the

chief idea, but the vehicle that bears it) was probably suggested by the

old song called “The Raging Canal,” but I cannot remember now. I do

remember, though, that at that time I thought my doggerel was one of the

ablest poems of the age: THE AGED PILOT MAN.

On the Erie Canal, it was, All on a summer’s day, I sailed forth with my

parents Far away to Albany.

From out the clouds at noon that day There came a dreadful storm, That

piled the billows high about, And filled us with alarm.

A man came rushing from a house, Saying, ‘Snub up your boat I pray, [The

customary canal technicality for “tie up.”] Snub up your boat, snub up,

alas, Snub up while yet you may.’

Our captain cast one glance astern, Then forward glancèd he, And said,

“My wife and little ones I never more shall see.”

Said Dollinger the pilot man, In noble words, but few,—“Fear not, but

lean on Dollinger, And he will fetch you through.”

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The boat drove on, the frightened mules Tore through the rain and wind,

And bravely still, in danger’s post, The whip-boy strode behind.

“Come ’board, come ’board,” the captain cried, “Nor tempt so wild a

storm;” But still the raging mules advanced, And still the boy strode

on.

Then said the captain to us all, “Alas, ’tis plain to me, The greater

danger is not there, But here upon the sea.

“So let us strive, while life remains, To save all souls on board, And

then if die at last we must, Let.... I cannot speak the word!”

Said Dollinger the pilot man, Tow’ring above the crew, “Fear not, but

trust in Dollinger, And he will fetch you through.”

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“Low bridge! low bridge!” all heads went down, The laboring bark sped

on; A mill we passed, we passed church, Hamlets, and fields of corn; And

all the world came out to see, And chased along the shore Crying, “Alas,

alas, the sheeted rain, The wind, the tempest’s roar! Alas, the gallant

ship and crew, Can nothing help them more?”

And from our deck sad eyes looked out Across the stormy scene: The

tossing wake of billows aft, The bending forests green, The chickens

sheltered under carts In lee of barn the cows, The skurrying swine with

straw in mouth, The wild spray from our bows!

“She balances! She wavers! Now let her go about! If she misses stays and

broaches to, We’re all”—then with a shout, “Huray! huray! Avast!

belay! Take in more sail! Lord, what a gale! Ho, boy, haul taut on the

hind mule’s tail!”

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“Ho! lighten ship! ho! man the pump! Ho, hostler, heave the lead!”

“A quarter-three!—’tis shoaling fast! Three feet large!—t-h-r-e-e

feet!—Three feet scant!” I cried in fright “Oh, is there no retreat?”

Said Dollinger, the pilot man, As on the vessel flew, “Fear not, but

trust in Dollinger, And he will fetch you through.”

A panic struck the bravest hearts, The boldest cheek turned pale; For

plain to all, this shoaling said A leak had burst the ditch’s bed! And,

straight as bolt from crossbow sped, Our ship swept on, with shoaling

lead, Before the fearful gale!

“Sever the tow-line! Cripple the mules!” Too late! There comes a

shock! Another length, and the fated craft Would have swum in the saving

lock!

Then gathered together the shipwrecked crew And took one last embrace,

While sorrowful tears from despairing eyes Ran down each hopeless face;

And some did think of their little ones Whom they never more might see,

And others of waiting wives at home, And mothers that grieved would be.

But of all the children of misery there On that poor sinking frame, But

one spake words of hope and faith, And I worshipped as they came: Said

Dollinger the pilot man,—(O brave heart, strong and true!)—“Fear not,

but trust in Dollinger, For he will fetch you through.”

Lo! scarce the words have passed his lips The dauntless prophet say’th,

When every soul about him seeth A wonder crown his faith!

“And count ye all, both great and small, As numbered with the dead: For

mariner for forty year, On Erie, boy and man, I never yet saw such a

storm, Or one’t with it began!”

So overboard a keg of nails And anvils three we threw, Likewise four

bales of gunny-sacks, Two hundred pounds of glue, Two sacks of corn,

four ditto wheat, A box of books, a cow, A violin, Lord Byron’s works, A

rip-saw and a sow.

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A curve! a curve! the dangers grow! “Labbord!—stabbord!—s-t-e-a-d-

y!—so!—Hard-a-port, Dol!—hellum-a-lee! Haw the head mule!—the aft

one gee! Luff!—bring her to the wind!”

For straight a farmer brought a plank,—(Mysteriously inspired)—And

laying it unto the ship, In silent awe retired.

Then every sufferer stood amazed That pilot man before; A moment stood.

Then wondering turned, And speechless walked ashore.

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CHAPTER LII.

Since I desire, in this chapter, to say an instructive word or two about

the silver mines, the reader may take this fair warning and skip, if he

chooses. The year 1863 was perhaps the very top blossom and culmination

of the “flush times.” Virginia swarmed with men and vehicles to that

degree that the place looked like a very hive—that is when one’s vision

could pierce through the thick fog of alkali dust that was generally

blowing in summer. I will say, concerning this dust, that if you drove

ten miles through it, you and your horses would be coated with it a

sixteenth of an inch thick and present an outside appearance that was a

uniform pale yellow color, and your buggy would have three inches of

dust in it, thrown there by the wheels. The delicate scales used by the

assayers were inclosed in glass cases intended to be air-tight, and yet

some of this dust was so impalpable and so invisibly fine that it would

get in, somehow, and impair the accuracy of those scales.

Speculation ran riot, and yet there was a world of substantial business

going on, too. All freights were brought over the mountains from

California (150 miles) by pack-train partly, and partly in huge wagons

drawn by such long mule teams that each team amounted to a procession,

and it did seem, sometimes, that the grand combined procession of

animals stretched unbroken from Virginia to California. Its long route

was traceable clear across the deserts of the Territory by the writhing

serpent of dust it lifted up. By these wagons, freights over that

hundred and fifty miles were $200 a ton for small lots (same price for

all express matter brought by stage), and $100 a ton for full loads. One

Virginia firm received one hundred tons of freight a month, and paid

$10,000 a month freightage. In the winter the freights were much higher.

All the bullion was shipped in bars by stage to San Francisco (a bar was

usually about twice the size of a pig of lead and contained from $1,500

to $3,000 according to the amount of gold mixed with the silver), and

the freight on it (when the shipment was large) was one and a quarter

per cent. of its intrinsic value.

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