Category: Humour

Roughing It, Part 1.

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

Chapters

1. Chapter 1

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

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

Arrive at St. Joseph--Only Twenty-five Pounds Baggage Allowed--Farewell to Kid Gloves and Dress Coats--Armed to the Teeth--The "Allen"--A Cheerful Weapon--Persuaded to Buy a Mul...

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

Making Our Bed--Assaults by the Unabridged--At a Station--Our Driver a Great and Shining Dignitary--Strange Place for a Frontyard --Accommodations--Double Portraits--An Heirloom...

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

13. Chapter 13

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 Str...

14. Chapter 14

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

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--Fath...

17. Chapter 17

18. Chapter 18

19. Chapter 19

20. Chapter 20

21. Chapter 21

22. Chapter 22

Alkali Dust--Desolation and Contemplation--Carson City--Our Journey Ended--We are Introduced to Several Citizens--A Strange Rebuke--A Washoe Zephyr at Play--Its Office Hours--Go...

23. Chapter 23

24. Chapter 24

25. Chapter 25

Resolve to Buy a Horse--Horsemanship in Carson--A Temptation--Advice Given Me Freely--I Buy the Mexican Plug--My First Ride--A Good Bucker--I Loan the Plug--Experience of Borrow...

26. Chapter 26

The Mormons in Nevada--How to Persuade a Loan from Them--Early History of the Territory--Silver Mines Discovered--The New Territorial Government--A Foreign One and a Poor One--I...

27. Chapter 27

28. Chapter 28

29. Chapter 29

30. Chapter 30

31. Chapter 31

32. Chapter 32

The Guests at "Honey Lake Smith's"--"Bully Old Arkansas"--"Our Landlord" --Determined to Fight--The Landlord's Wife--The Bully Conquered by Her --Another Start--Crossing the Car...

33. Chapter 33

Desperate Situation--Attempts to Make a Fire--Our Horses leave us--We Find Matches--One, Two, Three and the Last--No Fire--Death Seems Inevitable--We Mourn Over Our Evil Lives--...

34. Chapter 34

35. Chapter 35

36. Chapter 36

A New Travelling Companion--All Full and No Accommodations--How Captain Nye found Room--and Caused Our Leaving to be Lamented--The Uses of Tunnelling--A Notable Example--We Go i...

37. Chapter 37

38. Chapter 38

39. Chapter 39

40. Chapter 40

Visit to the Islands in Lake Mono--Ashes and Desolation--Life Amid Death Our Boat Adrift--A Jump For Life--A Storm On the Lake--A Mass of Soap Suds--Geological Curiosities--A We...

41. Chapter 41

42. Chapter 42

43. Chapter 43

44. Chapter 44

45. Chapter 45

46. Chapter 46

Flush Times Continue--Sanitary Commission Fund--Wild Enthusiasm of the People--Would not wait to Contribute--The Sanitary Flour Sack--It is Carried to Gold Hill and Dayton--Fina...

47. Chapter 47

The Nabobs of Those Days--John Smith as a Traveler--Sudden Wealth--A Sixty-Thousand-Dollar Horse--A Smart Telegraph Operator--A Nabob in New York City--Charters an Omnibus--"Wal...

48. Chapter 48

Buck Fanshaw's Death--The Cause Thereof--Preparations for His Burial --Scotty Briggs the Committee Man--He Visits the Minister--Scotty Can't Play His Hand--The Minister Gets Mix...

49. Chapter 49

The First Twenty-Six Graves in Nevada--The Prominent Men of the County --The Man Who Had Killed His Dozen--Trial by Jury--Specimen Jurors--A Private Grave Yard--The Desperadoes-...

50. Chapter 50

51. Chapter 51

Captain Ned Blakely--Bill Nookes Receives Desired Information--Killing of Blakely's Mate--A Walking Battery--Blakely Secures Nookes--Hang First and Be Tried Afterwards--Captain...

52. Chapter 52

The Weekly Occidental--A Ready Editor--A Novel--A Concentration of Talent--The Heroes and the Heroines--The Dissolute Author Engaged --Extraordinary Havoc With the Novel--A High...

53. Chapter 53

54. Chapter 54

Jim Blaine and his Grandfather's Ram--Filkin's Mistake--Old Miss Wagner and her Glass Eye--Jacobs, the Coffin Dealer--Waiting for a Customer--His Bargain With Old Robbins--Robbi...

55. Chapter 55

56. Chapter 56

57. Chapter 57

58. Chapter 58

59. Chapter 59

60. Chapter 60

61. Chapter 61

62. Chapter 62

63. Chapter 63

64. Chapter 64

65. Chapter 65

66. Chapter 66

67. Chapter 67

68. Chapter 68

69. Chapter 69

70. Chapter 70

71. Chapter 71

72. Chapter 72

73. Chapter 73

74. Chapter 74

75. Chapter 75

76. Chapter 76

77. Chapter 77

78. Chapter 78

My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory--an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Se...

79. Chapter 79

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

80. Chapter 80

About an hour and a half before daylight we were bowling along smoothly over the road--so smoothly that our cradle only rocked in a gentle, lulling way, that was gradually sooth...

81. Chapter 81

As the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we made preparation for bed. We stirred up the hard leather letter-sacks, and the knotty canvas bags of printed matter (knott...

82. Chapter 82

Another night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came, by and by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses of level greensward, bright sunli...

83. Chapter 83

Our new conductor (just shipped) had been without sleep for twenty hours. Such a thing was very frequent. From St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, by stage-coach, w...

84. Chapter 84

It did seem strange enough to see a town again after what appeared to us such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless solitude! We tumbled out into t...

85. Chapter 85

In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and watching for the "pony-rider"--the fleet messenger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramen...

86. Chapter 86

We passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh morning out we found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow (apparently) looming vast and solitary-...

87. Chapter 87

Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and conductors had been about this man Slade, ever since the day before we reached Julesburg. In order that the eastern reade...