I leave Virginia for Great Salt Lake City, via the Reese River
Silver Diggings.
There are eight passengers of us inside the coach--which, by the
way, isn't a coach, but a Concord covered mud wagon.
Among the passengers is a genial man of the name of Ryder, who has
achieved a widespread reputation as a strangler of unpleasant bears
in the mountain fastnesses of California, and who is now an eminent
Reese River miner.
We ride night and day, passing through the land of the Piute
Indians. Reports reach us that fifteen hundred of these savages
are on the Rampage, under the command of a red usurper named
Buffalo Jim, who seems to be a sort of Jeff Davis, inasmuch as he
and his followers have seceded from the regular Piut organization.
The seceding savages have announced that they shall kill and scalp
all pale-faces [which makes our face pale, I reckon] found loose in
that section. We find the guard doubled at all the stations where
we change horses, and our passengers nervously examine their
pistols and readjust the long glittering knives in their belts. I
feel in my pockets to see if the key which unlocks the carpet-bag
containing my revolvers is all right--for I had rather brilliantly
locked my deadly weapons up in that article, which was strapped
with the other baggage to the rack behind. The passengers frown on
me for this carelessness, but the kind-hearted Ryder gives me a
small double-barrelled gun, with which I narrowly escape murdering
my beloved friend Hingston in cold blood. I am not used to guns
and things, and in changing the position of this weapon I pulled
the trigger rather harder than was necessary.
When this wicked rebellion first broke out I was among the first--
to stay at home--chiefly because of my utter ignorance of firearms.
I should be valuable to the Army as a Brigadier-General only so far
as the moral influence of--my name went.
. . . .
When this wicked rebellion first broke out I was among the first to
stay at home -chiefly because of my utter ignorance of firearms. I
should be valuable to the army as a Brigadier General only so far
as the moral influence of my name went.
. . . .
However, we pass safely through the land of the Piutes, unmolested
by Buffalo James. This celebrated savage can read and write, and
is quite an orator, like Metamora, or the last of the Wampanoags.
He went on to Washington a few years ago and called Mr. Buchanan
his Great Father, and the members of the Cabinet his dear Brothers.
They gave him a great many blankets, and he returned to his
beautiful hunting grounds and went to killing stage drivers. He
made such a fine impression upon Mr. Buchanan during his sojourn in
Washington that that statesman gave a young English tourist, who
crossed the plain a few years since, a letter of introduction to
him. The great Indian chief read the English person's letter with
considerable emotion, and then ordered him scalped, and stole his
trunks.
Mr. Ryder knows me only as "Mr. Brown," and he refreshes me during
the journey by quotations from my books and lectures.
"Never seen Ward?" he said.
"Oh, no."
"Ward says he likes little girls, but he likes large girls just as
well. Haw, haw, haw! I should like to see the d--- fool!"
He referred to me.
He even woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me one of
Ward's jokes.
. . . .