Complete Works of Artemus Ward Part 4, To California and Return — Ch 2
4. 5. WASHOE.
We reach Carson City about nine o'clock in the morning.
It is the capital of the silver-producing territory of Nevada.
They shoot folks here somewhat, and the law is rather partial than otherwise to first-class murderers.
I visit the territorial Prison, and the Warden points out the prominent convicts to me thus: "This man's crime was horse-stealing.
He is here for life."
"This man is in for murder.
He is here for three years."
But shooting isn't as popular in Nevada as it once was.
A few years since they used to have a dead man for breakfast every morning.
A reformed desperado told my that he supposed he had killed men enough to stock a graveyard.
"A feeling of remorse," he said, "sometimes comes over me!
But I'm an altered man now.
I hain't killed a man for over two weeks!
What'll yer poison yourself with?"
he added, dealing a resonant blow on the bar.
There used to live near Carson City a notorious desperado, who never visited town without killing somebody.
He would call for liquor at some drinking-house, and if anybody declined joining him he would at once commence shooting.
But one day he shot a man too many.
Going into the St. Nicholas drinking-house he asked the company present to join him in a North American drink.
One individual was rash enough to refuse.
With a look of sorrow rather than anger the desperado revealed his revolver, and said, "Good God!
MUST I kill a man every time I come to Carson?"
and so saying he fired and killed the individual on the spot.
But this was the last murder the bloodthirsty miscreant ever committed, for the aroused citizens pursued him with rifles and shot him down in his own dooryard.
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I lecture in the theatre at Carson, which opens out of a drinking and gambling house.
On each side of the door where my ticket-taker stands there are monte-boards and sweat-cloths, but they are deserted to-night, the gamblers being evidently of a literary turn of mind.
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Five years ago there was only a pony-path over the precipitous hills on which now stands the marvelous city of Virginia, with its population of twelve thousand persons, and perhaps more.
Virginia, with its stately warehouses and gay shops; its splendid streets, paved with silver ore; its banking houses and faro-banks; its attractive coffee-houses and elegant theatre, its music halls and its three daily newspapers.
Virginia is very wild, but I believe it is now pretty generally believed that a mining city must go through with a certain amount of unadulterated cussedness before it can settle down and behave itself in a conservative and seemly manner.
Virginia has grown up in the heart of the richest silver regions in the world, the El Dorado of the hour; and of the immense numbers who are swarming thither not more than half carry their mother's Bible or any settled religion with them.
The gambler and the strange woman as naturally seek the new sensational town as ducks take to that element which is so useful for making cocktails and bathing one's feet; and these people make the new town rather warm for a while.
But by and by the earnest and honest citizens get tired of this ungodly nonsense and organize a Vigilance Committee, which hangs the more vicious of the pestiferous crowd to a sour-apple tree; and then come good municipal laws, ministers, meeting-houses, and a tolerably sober police in blue coats with brass buttons.
About five thousand able-bodied men are in the mines underground, here;
some as far down as five hundred feet.
The Gould and Curry Mine employs nine hundred men, and annually turns out about twenty million dollars' worth of "demnition gold and silver," as Mr. Mantalini might express it, though silver chiefly.
There are many other mines here and at Gold Hill (another startling silver city, a mile from here), all of which do nearly as well.
The silver is melted down into bricks of the size of common house bricks; then it is loaded into huge wagons, each drawn by eight and twelve mules, and sent off to San Francisco.
To a young person fresh from the land of greenbacks this careless manner of carting off solid silver is rather a startler.
It is related that a young man who came Overland from New Hampshire a few months before my arrival became so excited about it that he fell in a fit, with the name of his Uncle Amos on his lips!
The hardy miners supposed he wanted his uncle there to see the great sight, and faint with him.
But this was pure conjecture, after all.
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I visit several of the adjacent mining towns, but I do not go to Aurora.
No, I think not.
A lecturer on psychology was killed there the other night by the playful discharge of a horse-pistol in the hands of a degenerate and intoxicated Spaniard.
This circumstance, and a rumor that the citizens are "agin" literature, induce me to go back to Virginia.
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I had pointed out to me at a restaurant a man who had killed four men in street broils, and who had that very day cut his own brother's breast open in a dangerous manner with a small supper knife.
He was a gentleman, however.
I heard him tell some men so.
He admitted it himself.
And I don't think he would lie about a little thing like that.
The theatre at Virginia will attract the attention of the stranger, because it is an unusually elegant affair of the kind, and would be so regarded anywhere.
It was built, of course, by Mr. Thomas Maguire, the Napoleonic manager of the Pacific, and who has built over twenty theatres in his time and will perhaps build as many more, unless somebody stops him--which, by the way, will not be a remarkably easy thing to do.
As soon as a mining camp begins to assume the proportions of a city, at about the time the whiskey-vender draws his cork or the gambler spreads his green cloth, Maguire opens a theatre, and with a hastily-organized "Vigilance Committee" of actors, commences to execute Shakespeare.
4. 6. MR.
PEPPER.
My arrival at Virginia City was signalized by the following incident: I had no sooner achieved my room in the garret of the International Hotel than I was called upon by an intoxicated man who said he was an Editor.
Knowing how rare it was for an Editor to be under the blighting influence of either spiritous or malt liquors, I received this statement doubtfully.
But I said: "What name?"
"Wait!"
he said, and went out.
I heard him pacing unsteadily up and down the hall outside.
In ten minutes he returned, and said: "Pepper!"
Pepper was indeed his name.
He had been out to see if he could remember it; and he was so flushed with his success that he repeated it joyously several times, and then, with a short laugh he went away.
I had often heard of a man being "so drunk that he didn't know what town he lived in," but here was a man so hideously inebriated that he didn't know what his name was.
I saw him no more, but I heard from him.
For he published a notice of my lecture, in which he said I had A DISSIPATED AIR!
4. 7. HORACE GREELEY'S RIDE TO PLACERVILLE.
When Mr. Greeley was in California ovations awaited him at every town.
He had written powerful leaders in the "Tribune" in favor of the Pacific railroad, which had greatly endeared him to the citizens of the Golden State.
And therefore they made much of him when he went to see them.
At one town the enthusiastic populace tore his celebrated white coat to pieces, and carried the pieces home to remember him by.
The citizens of Placerville prepared to fete the great journalist, and an extra coach, with extra relays of horses, was chartered to the California Stage Company to carry him from Folsom to Placerville--distance, forty miles.
The extra was in some way delayed, and did not leave Folsom until late in the afternoon.
Mr. Greeley was to be feted at 7 o'clock that evening by the citizens of Placerville, and it was altogether necessary that he should be there by that hour.
So the Stage Company said to Henry Monk, the driver of the extra: "Henry, this great man must be there by 7 to-night."
And Henry answered, "The great man shall be there."
The roads were in an awful state, and during the first few miles out of Folsom slow progress was made.
"Sir," said Mr. Greeley, "are you aware that I MUST be at Placerville at 7 o'clock to-night?"
"I've got my orders!"
laconically returned Henry Monk.
Still the coach dragged slowly forward.
"Sir," said Mr. Greeley, "this is not a trifling matter.
I MUST be there at 7!"
Again came the answer, "I've got my orders!"
But the speed was not increased, and Mr. Greeley chafed away another half hour; when, as he was again about to remonstrate with the driver, the horses suddenly started into a furious run, and all sorts of encouraging yells filled the air from the throat of Henry Monk.
"That is right, my good fellow!"
cried Mr. Greeley.
"I'll give you ten dollars when we get to Placerville.
Now we ARE going!"
They were indeed, and at a terrible speed.
Crack, crack!
went the whip, and again "that voice" split the air.
"Git up!
Hi yi!
G'long!
Yip--yip!"
And on they tore over stones and ruts, up hill and down, at a rate of speed never before achieved by stage horses.
Mr. Greeley, who had been bouncing from one end of the coach to the other like an india-rubber ball, managed to get his head out of the window, when he said: "Do--on't--on't--on't you-u-u think we-e-e-e shall get there by seven if we do--on't--on't go so fast?"
"I've got my orders!"
That was all Henry Monk said.
And on tore the coach.
It was becoming serious.
Already the journalist was extremely sore from the terrible jolting, and again his head "might have been seen" at the window.
"Sir," he said, "I don't care--care--AIR, if we DON'T get there at seven!"
"I've got my orders!"
Fresh horses.
Forward again, faster than before.
Over rocks and stumps, on one of which the coach narrowly escaped turning a summerset.
"See here!"
shrieked Mr. Greeley, "I don't care if we don't get there at all!"
"I've got my orders!
I work for the California Stage Company, _I_ do.
That's wot I WORK for.
They said, 'git this man through by seving.'
An' this man's goin' through.
You bet!
Gerlong!
Whoo- ep!"
Another frightful jolt, and Mr. Greeley's bald head suddenly found its way through the roof of the coach, amidst the crash of small timbers and the ripping of strong canvas.
"Stop, you ---- maniac!"
he roared.
Again answered Henry Monk: "I've got my orders!
KEEP YOUR SEAT, HORACE!"
At Mud Springs, a village a few miles from Placerville, they met a large delegation of the citizens of Placerville, who had come out to meet the celebrated editor, and escort him into town.
There was a military company, a brass band, and a six-horse wagon load of beautiful damsels in milk-white dresses representing all the States in the Union.
It was nearly dark now, but the delegation were amply provided with torches, and bonfires blazed all along the road to Placerville.
The citizens met the coach in the outskirts of Mud Springs, and Mr. Monk reined in his foam-covered steeds.
"Is Mr. Greeley on board?"
asked the chairman of the committee.
"HE WAS, A FEW MILES BACK!"
said Mr. Monk; "yes," he added, after looking down through the hole which the fearful jolting had made in the coach-roof--"yes, I can see him!
He is there!"
"Mr. Greeley," said the Chairman of the Committee, presenting himself at the window of the coach, "Mr. Greeley, sir!
We are come to most cordially welcome you, sir--why, God bless me, sir, you are bleeding at the nose!"
"I've got my orders!"
cried Mr. Monk.
"My orders is as follers: Get him there by seving!
It wants a quarter to seving.
Stand out of the way!"
"But, sir," exclaimed the Committee-man, seizing the off leader by the reins--"Mr Monk, we are come to escort him into town!
Look at the procession, sir, and the brass bands, and the people, and the young women, sir!"
"I'VE GOT MY ORDERS!"
screamed Mr. Monk.
"My orders don't say nothin' about no brass bands and young women.
My orders says, 'git him there by seving!'
Let go them lines!
Clear the way there!
Whoo-ep!
KEEP YOUR SEAT, HORACE!"
and the coach dashed wildly through the procession, upsetting a portion of the brass band, and violently grazing the wagon which contained the beautiful young women in white.
Years hence, gray-haired men, who were little boys in this procession, will tell their grandchildren how this stage tore through Mud Springs, and how Horace Greeley's bald head ever and anon showed itself, like a wild apparition, above the coach-roof.
Mr. Monk was on time.
There is a tradition that Mr. Greeley was very indignant for a while; then he laughed, and finally presented Mr. Monk with a brand new suit of clothes.
Mr. Monk himself is still in the employ of the California Stage Company, and is rather fond of relating a story that has made him famous all over the Pacific coast.
But he says he yields to no man in his admiration for Horace Greeley.
4. 8. TO REESE RIVER.
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.
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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.
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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.
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I lecture at Big Creek.
Big Creek is a straggling, wild, little village; and the house in which I had the honor of speaking a piece had no other floor than the bare earth.
The roof was of sagebrush.
At one end of the building a huge wood fire blazed, which, with half-a-dozen tallow-candles, afforded all the illumination desired.
The lecturer spoke from behind the drinking bar.
Behind him long rows of decanters glistened; above him hung pictures of race-horses and prize-fighters; and beside him, in his shirt-sleeves and wearing a cheerful smile, stood the bar-keeper.
My speeches at the Bar before this had been of an elegant character, perhaps, but quite brief.
They never extended beyond "I don't care if I do," "No sugar in mine," And short gems of a like character.
I had a good audience at Big Creek, who seemed to be pleased, the bar-keeper especially; for at the close of any "point" that I sought to make he would deal the counter a vigorous blow with his fist, and exclaim, "Good boy from the New England States!
listen to William W. Shakespeare!"
Back to Austin.
We lose our way, and hitching our horses to a tree, go in search of some human beings.
The night is very dark.
We soon stumble upon a camp-fire, and an unpleasantly modulated voice asks us to say our prayers, adding that we are on the point of going to Glory with our boots on.
I think perhaps there may be some truth in this, as the mouth of a horse-pistol almost grazes my forehead, while immediately behind the butt of that death-dealing weapon I perceive a large man with black whiskers.
Other large men begin to assemble, also with horse-pistols.
Dr. Hingston hastily explains, while I go back to the carriage to say my prayers, where there is more room.
The men were miners on a prospecting tour, and as we advanced upon them without sending them word they took us for highway robbers.
I must not forget to say that my brave and kind-hearted friend Ryder of the mail coach, who had so often alluded to "Ward" in our ride from Virginia to Austin, was among my hearers at Big Creek.
He had discovered who I was, and informed me that he had debated whether to wollop me or give me some rich silver claims.
