We
were
approaching
the
end
of
our
long
journey.
It
was
the
morning
of
the
twentieth
day.
At
noon
we
would
reach Carson City,
the
capital
of
Nevada
Territory.
We
were
not
glad,
but
sorry.
It
had been a
fine
pleasure trip;
we
had fed
fat
on
wonders
every
day;
we
were
now
well
accustomed
to
stage
life,
and
very
fond
of
it;
so
the
idea
of
coming
to
a stand-still
and
settling
down
to
a humdrum
existence
in
a
village
was
not
agreeable,
but
on
the
contrary
depressing. Visibly
our
new
home
was
a desert, walled
in
by
barren, snow-clad mountains.
There
was
not
a tree
in
sight.
There
was
no
vegetation
but
the
endless
sage-brush
and
greasewood.
All
nature
was
gray
with
it.
We
were
plowing
through
great
deeps
of
powdery
alkali
dust
that
rose
in
thick
clouds
and
floated
across
the
plain
like
smoke
from
a
burning
house.
We
were
coated
with
it
like
millers;
so
were
the
coach,
the
mules,
the
mail-bags,
the
driver—we
and
the
sage-brush
and
the
other
scenery
were
all
one
monotonous
color.
Long
trains
of
freight
wagons
in
the
distance
envelope
in
ascending
masses
of
dust
suggested
pictures
of
prairies
on
fire.
These
teams
and
their
masters
were
the
only
life
we
saw.
Otherwise
we
moved
in
the
midst
of
solitude, silence
and
desolation.
Every
twenty
steps
we
passed
the
skeleton
of
some
dead
beast
of
burthen,
with
its
dust-coated skin stretched
tightly
over
its
empty ribs. Frequently a
solemn
raven
sat
upon
the
skull
or
the
hips
and
contemplated
the
passing coach
with
meditative
serenity.
By
and
by
Carson
City
was
pointed
out
to
us.
It
nestled
in
the
edge
of
a
great
plain
and
was
a
sufficient
number
of
miles
away
to
look
like
an
assemblage
of
mere
white
spots
in
the
shadow
of
a grim
range
of
mountains
overlooking
it,
whose
summits
seemed
lifted clear
out
of
companionship
and
consciousness
of
earthly
things.
We
arrived, disembarked,
and
the
stage
went on.
It
was
a "wooden" town;
its
population
two
thousand
souls.
The
main
street
consisted
of
four
or
five
blocks
of
little
white
frame
stores
which
were
too
high
to
sit
down
on,
but
not
too
high
for
various
other
purposes;
in
fact,
hardly
high enough.
They
were
packed
close together,
side
by
side,
as
if
room
were
scarce
in
that
mighty
plain.
The
sidewalk
was
of
boards
that
were
more
or
less
loose
and
inclined
to
rattle
when
walked upon.
In
the
middle
of
the
town,
opposite
the
stores,
was
the
"plaza"
which
is
native
to
all
towns
beyond
the
Rocky
Mountains—a large, unfenced,
level
vacancy,
with
a
liberty
pole
in
it,
and
very
useful
as
a
place
for
public auctions,
horse
trades,
and
mass
meetings,
and
likewise
for
teamsters
to
camp
in.
Two
other
sides
of
the
plaza
were
faced
by
stores,
offices
and
stables.
The
rest
of
Carson
City
was
pretty scattering.
We
were
introduced
to
several
citizens,
at
the
stage-office
and
on
the
way
up
to
the
Governor's
from
the
hotel—among others,
to
a Mr. Harris,
who
was
on
horseback;
he
began
to
say
something,
but
interrupted
himself
with
the
remark: "I'll
have
to
get
you
to
excuse
me
a minute;
yonder
is
the
witness
that
swore I
helped
to
rob
the
California
coach—a
piece
of
impertinent
intermeddling, sir,
for
I
am
not
even
acquainted
with
the
man."
Then
he
rode
over
and
began
to
rebuke
the
stranger
with
a six-shooter,
and
the
stranger
began
to
explain
with
another.
When
the
pistols
were
emptied,
the
stranger
resumed
his
work
(mending a whip-lash),
and
Mr. Harris rode
by
with
a
polite
nod,
homeward
bound,
with
a
bullet
through
one
of
his
lungs,
and
several
in
his
hips;
and
from
them
issued
little
rivulets
of
blood
that
coursed
down
the
horse's
sides
and
made
the
animal
look
quite
picturesque. I
never
saw
Harris shoot a
man
after
that
but
it
recalled
to
mind
that
first
day
in
Carson.
This
was
all
we
saw
that
day,
for
it
was
two
o'clock, now,
and
according
to
custom
the
daily
"Washoe Zephyr"
set
in; a
soaring
dust-drift
about
the
size
of
the
United
States
set
up
edgewise came
with
it,
and
the
capital
of
Nevada
Territory
disappeared
from
view. Still,
there
were
sights
to
be
seen
which
were
not
wholly
uninteresting
to
new
comers;
for
the
vast
dust
cloud
was
thickly
freckled
with
things
strange
to
the
upper
air—things
living
and
dead,
that
flitted
hither
and
thither, going
and
coming,
appearing
and
disappearing
among
the
rolling
billows
of
dust—hats,
chickens
and
parasols
sailing
in
the
remote
heavens; blankets,
tin
signs, sage-brush
and
shingles
a shade lower; door-mats
and
buffalo
robes
lower
still;
shovels
and
coal
scuttles
on
the
next
grade; glass doors,
cats
and
little
children
on
the
next;
disrupted
lumber
yards,
light
buggies
and
wheelbarrows
on
the
next;
and
down
only
thirty
or
forty
feet
above
ground
was
a scurrying
storm
of
emigrating
roofs
and
vacant
lots.
It
was
something
to
see
that
much. I
could
have
seen
more,
if
I
could
have
kept
the
dust
out
of
my eyes.
But
seriously a Washoe wind
is
by
no
means
a trifling matter.
It
blows flimsy
houses
down, lifts shingle
roofs
occasionally,
rolls
up
tin
ones
like
sheet
music,
now
and
then
blows a
stage
coach
over
and
spills
the
passengers;
and
tradition
says
the
reason
there
are
so
many
bald
people
there, is,
that
the
wind blows
the
hair
off
their
heads
while
they
are
looking
skyward
after
their
hats. Carson
streets
seldom
look
inactive
on
Summer
afternoons,
because
there
are
so
many
citizens
skipping
around
their
escaping
hats,
like
chambermaids trying
to
head
off
a spider.
The
"Washoe Zephyr" (Washoe
is
a pet
nickname
for
Nevada)
is
a
peculiar
Scriptural
wind,
in
that
no
man
knoweth "whence
it
cometh."
That
is
to
say,
where
it
originates.
It
comes
right
over
the
mountains
from
the
West,
but
when
one
crosses
the
ridge
he
does
not
find
any
of
it
on
the
other
side!
It
probably
is
manufactured
on
the
mountain-top
for
the
occasion,
and
starts
from
there.
It
is
a pretty regular wind,
in
the
summer
time.
Its
office
hours
are
from
two
in
the
afternoon
till
two
the
next
morning;
and
anybody
venturing
abroad
during
those
twelve
hours
needs
to
allow
for
the
wind
or
he
will
bring
up
a
mile
or
two
to
leeward
of
the
point
he
is
aiming
at.
And
yet
the
first
complaint
a Washoe
visitor
to
San Francisco makes,
is
that
the
sea
winds blow so, there!
There
is
a
good
deal
of
human
nature
in
that.
We
found
the
state
palace
of
the
Governor
of
Nevada
Territory
to
consist
of
a
white
frame
one-story
house
with
two
small
rooms
in
it
and
a
stanchion
supported
shed
in
front—for grandeur—it
compelled
the
respect
of
the
citizen
and
inspired
the
Indians
with
awe.
The
newly
arrived
Chief
and
Associate
Justices
of
the
Territory,
and
other
machinery
of
the
government,
were
domiciled
with
less
splendor.
They
were
boarding
around
privately,
and
had
their
offices
in
their
bedrooms.
The
Secretary
and
I
took
quarters
in
the
"ranch"
of
a
worthy
French
lady
by
the
name
of
Bridget
O'Flannigan, a
camp
follower
of
his
Excellency
the
Governor.
She
had known
him
in
his
prosperity
as
commander-in-chief
of
the
Metropolitan
Police
of
New
York,
and
she
would
not
desert
him
in
his
adversity
as
Governor
of
Nevada.
Our
room
was
on
the
lower
floor, facing
the
plaza,
and
when
we
had got
our
bed, a small table,
two
chairs,
the
government
fire-proof safe,
and
the
Unabridged
Dictionary
into
it,
there
was
still
room
enough
left
for
a visitor—may
be
two,
but
not
without
straining
the
walls.
But
the
walls
could
stand
it—at
least
the
partitions could,
for
they
consisted
simply
of
one
thickness
of
white
"cotton domestic" stretched
from
corner
to
corner
of
the
room.
This
was
the
rule
in
Carson—any
other
kind
of
partition
was
the
rare
exception.
And
if
you
stood
in
a dark
room
and
your
neighbors
in
the
next
had lights,
the
shadows
on
your
canvas
told
queer
secrets
sometimes!
Very
often
these
partitions
were
made
of
old
flour sacks
basted
together;
and
then
the
difference
between
the
common
herd
and
the
aristocracy
was,
that
the
common
herd
had unornamented sacks,
while
the
walls
of
the
aristocrat
were
overpowering
with
rudimental fresco—i.e.,
red
and
blue mill brands
on
the
flour sacks. Occasionally, also,
the
better
classes
embellished
their
canvas
by
pasting pictures
from
Harper's Weekly
on
them.
In
many
cases, too,
the
wealthy
and
the
cultured
rose
to
spittoons
and
other
evidences
of
a
sumptuous
and
luxurious
taste. [Washoe
people
take
a
joke
so
hard
that
I
must
explain
that
the
above
description
was
only
the
rule;
there
were
many
honorable
exceptions
in
Carson—plastered
ceilings
and
houses
that
had
considerable
furniture
in
them.—M. T.]
We
had a carpet
and
a
genuine
queen's-ware washbowl.
Consequently
we
were
hated
without
reserve
by
the
other
tenants
of
the
O'Flannigan "ranch."
When
we
added a painted oilcloth
window
curtain,
we
simply
took
our
lives
into
our
own
hands.
To
prevent
bloodshed
I removed
up
stairs
and
took
up
quarters
with
the
untitled
plebeians
in
one
of
the
fourteen
white
pine
cot-bedsteads
that
stood
in
two
long
ranks
in
the
one
sole
room
of
which
the
second
story
consisted.
It
was
a
jolly
company,
the
fourteen.
They
were
principally
voluntary
camp-followers
of
the
Governor,
who
had
joined
his
retinue
by
their
own
election
at
New
York
and
San Francisco
and
came along, feeling
that
in
the
scuffle
for
little
territorial
crumbs
and
offices
they
could
not
make
their
condition
more
precarious
than
it
was,
and
might
reasonably
expect
to
make
it
better.
They
were
popularly
known
as
the
"Irish Brigade,"
though
there
were
only
four
or
five
Irishmen
among
all
the
Governor's retainers.
His
good-natured
Excellency
was
much
annoyed
at
the
gossip
his
henchmen created—especially
when
there
arose a
rumor
that
they
were
paid
assassins
of
his, brought
along
to
quietly
reduce
the
democratic
vote
when
desirable! Mrs. O'Flannigan
was
boarding
and
lodging
them
at
ten
dollars
a
week
apiece,
and
they
were
cheerfully
giving
their
notes
for
it.
They
were
perfectly satisfied,
but
Bridget
presently found
that
notes
that
could
not
be
discounted
were
but
a
feeble
constitution
for
a Carson boarding- house.
So
she
began
to
harry
the
Governor
to
find
employment
for
the
"Brigade."
Her
importunities
and
theirs
together
drove
him
to
a
gentle
desperation
at
last,
and
he
finally
summoned
the
Brigade
to
the
presence. Then, said he: "Gentlemen, I
have
planned
a
lucrative
and
useful
service
for
you—a
service
which
will
provide
you
with
recreation
amid
noble
landscapes,
and
afford
you
never
ceasing
opportunities
for
enriching
your
minds
by
observation
and
study. I
want
you
to
survey a
railroad
from
Carson
City
westward
to
a
certain
point!
When
the
legislature meets I
will
have
the
necessary
bill
passed
and
the
remuneration
arranged." "What, a
railroad
over
the
Sierra
Nevada
Mountains?" "Well, then, survey
it
eastward
to
a
certain
point!"
He
converted
them
into
surveyors, chain-bearers
and
so
on,
and
turned
them
loose
in
the
desert.
It
was
"recreation"
with
a vengeance!
Recreation
on
foot, lugging
chains
through
sand
and
sage-brush,
under
a sultry
sun
and
among
cattle
bones, cayotes
and
tarantulas. "Romantic adventure"
could
go
no
further.
They
surveyed
very
slowly,
very
deliberately,
very
carefully.
They
returned
every
night
during
the
first
week, dusty, footsore, tired,
and
hungry,
but
very
jolly.
They
brought
in
great
store
of
prodigious
hairy spiders—tarantulas—and
imprisoned
them
in
covered
tumblers
up
stairs
in
the
"ranch."
After
the
first
week,
they
had
to
camp
on
the
field,
for
they
were
getting
well
eastward.
They
made
a
good
many
inquiries
as
to
the
location
of
that
indefinite
"certain point,"
but
got
no
information.
At
last,
to
a
peculiarly
urgent
inquiry
of
"How
far
eastward?"
Governor
Nye telegraphed back: "To
the
Atlantic
Ocean,
blast
you!—and
then
bridge
it
and
go
on!"
This
brought
back
the
dusty toilers,
who
sent
in
a
report
and
ceased
from
their
labors.
The
Governor
was
always
comfortable
about
it;
he
said Mrs. O'Flannigan
would
hold
him
for
the
Brigade's
board
anyhow,
and
he
intended
to
get
what
entertainment
he
could
out
of
the
boys;
he
said,
with
his
old-time
pleasant
twinkle,
that
he
meant
to
survey
them
into
Utah
and
then
telegraph Brigham
to
hang
them
for
trespass!
The
surveyors
brought
back
more
tarantulas
with
them,
and
so
we
had
quite
a
menagerie
arranged
along
the
shelves
of
the
room.
Some
of
these
spiders
could
straddle
over
a
common
saucer
with
their
hairy,
muscular
legs,
and
when
their
feelings
were
hurt,
or
their
dignity
offended,
they
were
the
wickedest-looking
desperadoes
the
animal
world
can
furnish.
If
their
glass prison-houses
were
touched
ever
so
lightly
they
were
up
and
spoiling
for
a
fight
in
a minute. Starchy?—proud? Indeed,
they
would
take
up
a straw
and
pick
their
teeth
like
a
member
of
Congress.
There
was
as
usual
a
furious
"zephyr" blowing
the
first
night
of
the
brigade's return,
and
about
midnight
the
roof
of
an
adjoining
stable
blew
off,
and
a
corner
of
it
came crashing
through
the
side
of
our
ranch.
There
was
a
simultaneous
awakening,
and
a
tumultuous
muster
of
the
brigade
in
the
dark,
and
a
general
tumbling
and
sprawling
over
each
other
in
the
narrow
aisle
between
the
bedrows.
In
the
midst
of
the
turmoil,
Bob
H——sprung
up
out
of
a
sound
sleep,
and
knocked
down
a
shelf
with
his
head. Instantly
he
shouted: "Turn out, boys—the
tarantulas
is
loose!"
No
warning
ever
sounded
so
dreadful.
Nobody
tried,
any
longer,
to
leave
the
room,
lest
he
might
step
on
a tarantula.
Every
man
groped
for
a
trunk
or
a bed,
and
jumped
on
it.
Then
followed
the
strangest
silence—a silence
of
grisly
suspense
it
was, too—waiting, expectancy, fear.
It
was
as
dark
as
pitch,
and
one
had
to
imagine
the
spectacle
of
those
fourteen
scant-clad men roosting
gingerly
on
trunks
and
beds,
for
not
a
thing
could
be
seen.
Then
came occasional
little
interruptions
of
the
silence,
and
one
could
recognize
a
man
and
tell
his
locality
by
his
voice,
or
locate
any
other
sound
a
sufferer
made
by
his
gropings
or
changes
of
position.
The
occasional voices
were
not
given
to
much
speaking—you simply
heard
a
gentle
ejaculation
of
"Ow!"
followed
by
a
solid
thump,
and
you
knew
the
gentleman had felt a hairy blanket
or
something
touch
his
bare
skin
and
had skipped
from
a
bed
to
the
floor.
Another
silence. Presently
you
would
hear
a
gasping
voice say: "Su—su—something's
crawling
up
the
back
of
my neck!"
Every
now
and
then
you
could
hear
a
little
subdued scramble
and
a
sorrowful
"O Lord!"
and
then
you
knew
that
somebody
was
getting
away
from
something
he
took
for
a tarantula,
and
not
losing
any
time
about
it, either. Directly a voice
in
the
corner
rang
out
wild
and
clear: "I've got him! I've got him!" [Pause,
and
probable
change
of
circumstances.] "No, he's got me! Oh,
ain't
they
never
going
to
fetch a lantern!"
The
lantern
came
at
that
moment,
in
the
hands
of
Mrs. O'Flannigan,
whose
anxiety
to
know
the
amount
of
damage
done
by
the
assaulting
roof
had
not
prevented
her
waiting
a
judicious
interval,
after
getting
out
of
bed
and
lighting
up,
to
see
if
the
wind
was
done, now,
up
stairs,
or
had a larger contract.
The
landscape
presented
when
the
lantern
flashed
into
the
room
was
picturesque,
and
might
have
been funny
to
some
people,
but
was
not
to
us. Although
we
were
perched
so
strangely
upon
boxes,
trunks
and
beds,
and
so
strangely
attired, too,
we
were
too
earnestly
distressed
and
too
genuinely
miserable
to
see
any
fun
about
it,
and
there
was
not
the
semblance
of
a
smile
anywhere visible. I
know
I
am
not
capable
of
suffering
more
than
I
did
during
those
few
minutes
of
suspense
in
the
dark,
surrounded
by
those
creeping, bloody-minded tarantulas. I had skipped
from
bed
to
bed
and
from
box
to
box
in
a cold agony,
and
every
time I touched
anything
that
was
furzy I fancied I felt
the
fangs. I had
rather
go
to
war
than
live
that
episode
over
again.
Nobody
was
hurt.
The
man
who
thought
a
tarantula
had "got him"
was
mistaken—only a crack
in
a
box
had
caught
his
finger.
Not
one
of
those
escaped
tarantulas
was
ever
seen
again.
There
were
ten
or
twelve
of
them.
We
took
candles
and
hunted
the
place
high
and
low
for
them,
but
with
no
success.
Did
we
go
back
to
bed
then?
We
did
nothing
of
the
kind.
Money
could
not
have
persuaded
us
to
do
it.
We
sat
up
the
rest
of
the
night
playing
cribbage
and
keeping
a sharp lookout
for
the
enemy.