Roughing It, Part 2.

ROUGHING IT, By Mark Twain, Part 2

Project Gutenberg's Roughing It, Part 2., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Roughing It, Part 2.

Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Release Date: July 2, 2004 [EBook #8583]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 2. ***

Produced by David Widger

ROUGHING IT, Part 2

By Mark Twain

PREFATORY.

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

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

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER XI.

And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again. News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana (whither Slade had removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him. I find an account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph from in the last chapter—The Vigilantes of Montana; being a Reliable Account of the Capture, Trial and Execution of Henry Plummer's Notorious Road Agent Band: By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Virginia City, M.T. Mr. Dimsdale's chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of how the people of the frontier deal with criminals when the courts of law prove inefficient. Mr. Dimsdale makes two remarks about Slade, both of which are accurately descriptive, and one of which is exceedingly picturesque: Those who saw him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be a kind husband, a most hospitable host and a courteous gentleman; on the contrary, those who met him when maddened with liquor and surrounded by a gang of armed roughs, would pronounce him a fiend incarnate. And this: From Fort Kearney, west, he was feared a great deal more than the almighty. For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expression, I will back that sentence against anything in literature. Mr. Dimsdale's narrative is as follows. In all places where italics occur, they are mine:

After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the Vigilantes considered that their work was nearly ended. They had freed the country of highwaymen and murderers to a great extent, and they determined that in the absence of the regular civil authority they would establish a People's Court where all offenders should be tried by judge and jury. This was the nearest approach to social order that the circumstances permitted, and, though strict legal authority was wanting, yet the people were firmly determined to maintain its efficiency, and to enforce its decrees. It may here be mentioned that the overt act which was the last round on the fatal ladder leading to the scaffold on which Slade perished, was the tearing in pieces and stamping upon a writ