What
to
do
next?
It
was
a momentous question. I had gone
out
into
the
world
to
shift
for
myself,
at
the
age
of
thirteen
(for my father had
endorsed
for
friends;
and
although
he
left
us
a
sumptuous
legacy
of
pride
in
his
fine
Virginian stock
and
its
national
distinction, I presently found
that
I
could
not
live
on
that
alone
without
occasional bread
to
wash
it
down
with). I had
gained
a
livelihood
in
various
vocations,
but
had
not
dazzled
anybody
with
my successes;
still
the
list
was
before
me,
and
the
amplest
liberty
in
the
matter
of
choosing, provided I wanted
to
work—which I
did
not,
after
being
so
wealthy. I had
once
been a
grocery
clerk,
for
one
day,
but
had
consumed
so
much
sugar
in
that
time
that
I
was
relieved
from
further
duty
by
the
proprietor; said
he
wanted
me
outside,
so
that
he
could
have
my custom. I had studied
law
an
entire
week,
and
then
given
it
up
because
it
was
so
prosy
and
tiresome. I had engaged briefly
in
the
study
of
blacksmithing,
but
wasted
so
much
time trying
to
fix
the
bellows
so
that
it
would
blow itself,
that
the
master
turned
me
adrift
in
disgrace,
and
told
me
I
would
come
to
no
good. I had been a bookseller's clerk
for
awhile,
but
the
customers
bothered
me
so
much
I
could
not
read
with
any
comfort,
and
so
the
proprietor gave
me
a furlough
and
forgot
to
put
a
limit
to
it. I had clerked
in
a
drug
store
part
of
a summer,
but
my
prescriptions
were
unlucky,
and
we
appeared
to
sell
more
stomach
pumps
than
soda
water.
So
I had
to
go. I had
made
of
myself
a
tolerable
printer,
under
the
impression
that
I
would
be
another
Franklin
some
day,
but
somehow had
missed
the
connection
thus
far.
There
was
no
berth
open
in
the
Esmeralda Union,
and
besides I had
always
been
such
a
slow
compositor
that
I
looked
with
envy
upon
the
achievements
of
apprentices
of
two
years' standing;
and
when
I
took
a "take," foremen
were
in
the
habit
of
suggesting
that
it
would
be
wanted "some time
during
the
year." I
was
a
good
average St.
Louis
and
New
Orleans
pilot
and
by
no
means
ashamed
of
my
abilities
in
that
line;
wages
were
two
hundred
and
fifty
dollars
a
month
and
no
board
to
pay,
and
I
did
long
to
stand
behind
a wheel
again
and
never
roam
any
more—but I had been
making
such
an
ass
of
myself
lately
in
grandiloquent letters
home
about
my blind lead
and
my
European
excursion
that
I
did
what
many
and
many
a
poor
disappointed
miner
had
done
before; said "It
is
all
over
with
me
now,
and
I
will
never
go
back
home
to
be
pitied—and snubbed." I had been a
private
secretary, a
silver
miner
and
a
silver
mill operative,
and
amounted
to
less
than
nothing
in
each,
and
now—
What
to
do
next? I
yielded
to
Higbie's
appeals
and
consented
to
try
the
mining
once
more.
We
climbed
far
up
on
the
mountain
side
and
went
to
work
on
a
little
rubbishy
claim
of
ours
that
had a
shaft
on
it
eight
feet deep. Higbie
descended
into
it
and
worked
bravely
with
his
pick
till
he
had loosened
up
a
deal
of
rock
and
dirt
and
then
I went
down
with
a long-handled
shovel
(the
most
awkward
invention
yet
contrived
by
man)
to
throw
it
out.
You
must
brace
the
shovel
forward
with
the
side
of
your
knee
till
it
is
full,
and
then,
with
a skilful toss, throw
it
backward
over
your
left shoulder. I
made
the
toss,
and
landed
the
mess
just
on
the
edge
of
the
shaft
and
it
all
came
back
on
my
head
and
down
the
back
of
my neck. I
never
said a word,
but
climbed
out
and
walked home. I
inwardly
resolved
that
I
would
starve
before
I
would
make
a target
of
myself
and
shoot
rubbish
at
it
with
a long-handled shovel. I sat down,
in
the
cabin,
and
gave
myself
up
to
solid
misery—so
to
speak.
Now
in
pleasanter
days
I had
amused
myself
with
writing
letters
to
the
chief
paper
of
the
Territory,
the
Virginia
Daily
Territorial
Enterprise,
and
had
always
been surprised
when
they
appeared
in
print. My
good
opinion
of
the
editors
had steadily declined;
for
it
seemed
to
me
that
they
might
have
found
something
better
to
fill
up
with
than
my literature. I had found a
letter
in
the
post
office
as
I came
home
from
the
hill
side,
and
finally I
opened
it. Eureka! [I
never
did
know
what
Eureka
meant,
but
it
seems
to
be
as
proper
a
word
to
heave
in
as
any
when
no
other
that
sounds
pretty offers.]
It
was
a
deliberate
offer
to
me
of
Twenty-Five
Dollars
a
week
to
come
up
to
Virginia
and
be
city
editor
of
the
Enterprise. I
would
have
challenged
the
publisher
in
the
"blind lead" days—I wanted
to
fall
down
and
worship him, now. Twenty-Five
Dollars
a week—it
looked
like
bloated luxury—a
fortune
a
sinful
and
lavish
waste
of
money.
But
my transports cooled
when
I
thought
of
my
inexperience
and
consequent
unfitness
for
the
position—and straightway,
on
top
of
this, my
long
array
of
failures
rose
up
before
me.
Yet
if
I
refused
this
place
I
must
presently
become
dependent
upon
somebody
for
my bread, a
thing
necessarily distasteful
to
a
man
who
had
never
experienced
such
a
humiliation
since
he
was
thirteen
years
old.
Not
much
to
be
proud
of,
since
it
is
so
common—but
then
it
was
all
I had
to
be
proud
of.
So
I
was
scared
into
being a
city
editor. I
would
have
declined, otherwise.
Necessity
is
the
mother
of
"taking chances." I
do
not
doubt
that
if,
at
that
time, I had been
offered
a salary
to
translate
the
Talmud
from
the
original
Hebrew, I
would
have
accepted—albeit
with
diffidence
and
some
misgivings—and thrown
as
much
variety
into
it
as
I
could
for
the
money. I went
up
to
Virginia
and
entered
upon
my
new
vocation. I
was
a
rusty
looking
city
editor, I
am
free
to
confess—coatless, slouch hat, blue
woolen
shirt,
pantaloons
stuffed
into
boot-tops,
whiskered
half
down
to
the
waist,
and
the
universal
navy
revolver slung
to
my belt.
But
I secured a
more
Christian
costume
and
discarded
the
revolver. I had
never
had
occasion
to
kill anybody,
nor
ever
felt a
desire
to
do
so,
but
had
worn
the
thing
in
deference
to
popular
sentiment,
and
in
order
that
I
might
not,
by
its
absence,
be
offensively conspicuous,
and
a
subject
of
remark.
But
the
other
editors,
and
all
the
printers, carried revolvers. I
asked
the
chief
editor
and
proprietor (Mr. Goodman, I
will
call
him,
since
it
describes
him
as
well
as
any
name
could
do)
for
some
instructions
with
regard
to
my duties,
and
he
told
me
to
go
all
over
town
and
ask
all
sorts
of
people
all
sorts
of
questions,
make
notes
of
the
information
gained,
and
write
them
out
for
publication.
And
he
added: "Never
say
'We learn' so-and-so,
or
'It
is
reported,'
or
'It
is
rumored,'
or
'We understand' so-and-so,
but
go
to
headquarters
and
get
the
absolute
facts,
and
then
speak
out
and
say
'It
is
so-and-so.' Otherwise,
people
will
not
put
confidence
in
your
news. Unassailable certainly
is
the
thing
that
gives
a newspaper
the
firmest
and
most
valuable reputation."
It
was
the
whole
thing
in
a nut-shell;
and
to
this
day
when
I find a
reporter
commencing
his
article
with
"We understand," I
gather
a
suspicion
that
he
has
not
taken
as
much
pains
to
inform
himself
as
he
ought
to
have
done. I
moralize
well,
but
I
did
not
always
practise
well
when
I
was
a
city
editor; I
let
fancy
get
the
upper
hand
of
fact
too
often
when
there
was
a
dearth
of
news. I
can
never
forget
my
first
day's experience
as
a reporter. I
wandered
about
town
questioning
everybody, boring everybody,
and
finding
out
that
nobody
knew
anything.
At
the
end
of
five
hours
my notebook
was
still
barren. I
spoke
to
Mr. Goodman.
He
said: "Dan used
to
make
a
good
thing
out
of
the
hay
wagons
in
a
dry
time
when
there
were
no
fires
or
inquests.
Are
there
no
hay
wagons
in
from
the
Truckee?
If
there
are,
you
might
speak
of
the
renewed
activity
and
all
that
sort
of
thing,
in
the
hay
business,
you
know. "It isn't sensational
or
exciting,
but
it
fills
up
and
looks
business
like." I
canvassed
the
city
again
and
found
one
wretched
old
hay
truck
dragging
in
from
the
country.
But
I
made
affluent
use
of
it. I multiplied
it
by
sixteen, brought
it
into
town
from
sixteen
different
directions,
made
sixteen
separate
items
out
of
it,
and
got
up
such
another
sweat
about
hay
as
Virginia
City
had
never
seen
in
the
world
before.
This
was
encouraging.
Two
nonpareil
columns
had
to
be
filled,
and
I
was
getting
along. Presently,
when
things
began
to
look
dismal
again, a
desperado
killed
a
man
in
a
saloon
and
joy
returned
once
more. I
never
was
so
glad
over
any
mere
trifle
before
in
my life. I said
to
the
murderer: "Sir,
you
are
a
stranger
to
me,
but
you
have
done
me
a
kindness
this
day
which
I
can
never
forget.
If
whole
years
of
gratitude
can
be
to
you
any
slight compensation,
they
shall
be
yours. I
was
in
trouble
and
you
have
relieved
me
nobly
and
at
a time
when
all
seemed
dark
and
drear.
Count
me
your
friend
from
this
time forth,
for
I
am
not
a
man
to
forget
a favor."
If
I
did
not
really
say
that
to
him
I
at
least
felt a
sort
of
itching
desire
to
do
it. I wrote
up
the
murder
with
a
hungry
attention
to
details,
and
when
it
was
finished experienced
but
one
regret—namely,
that
they
had
not
hanged my
benefactor
on
the
spot,
so
that
I
could
work
him
up
too.
Next
I
discovered
some
emigrant
wagons
going
into
camp
on
the
plaza
and
found
that
they
had
lately
come
through
the
hostile
Indian
country
and
had
fared
rather
roughly. I
made
the
best
of
the
item
that
the
circumstances permitted,
and
felt
that
if
I
were
not
confined
within
rigid
limits
by
the
presence
of
the
reporters
of
the
other
papers I
could
add
particulars
that
would
make
the
article
much
more
interesting. However, I found
one
wagon
that
was
going
on
to
California,
and
made
some
judicious
inquiries
of
the
proprietor.
When
I learned,
through
his
short
and
surly
answers
to
my cross-questioning,
that
he
was
certainly going
on
and
would
not
be
in
the
city
next
day
to
make
trouble, I got ahead
of
the
other
papers,
for
I
took
down
his
list
of
names
and
added
his
party
to
the
killed
and
wounded.
Having
more
scope here, I
put
this
wagon
through
an
Indian
fight
that
to
this
day
has
no
parallel
in
history. My
two
columns
were
filled.
When
I read
them
over
in
the
morning
I felt
that
I had found my
legitimate
occupation
at
last. I
reasoned
within
myself
that
news,
and
stirring news, too,
was
what
a paper needed,
and
I felt
that
I
was
peculiarly
endowed
with
the
ability
to
furnish
it. Mr. Goodman said
that
I
was
as
good
a
reporter
as
Dan. I
desired
no
higher
commendation.
With
encouragement
like
that, I felt
that
I
could
take
my pen
and
murder
all
the
immigrants
on
the
plains
if
need
be
and
the
interests
of
the
paper
demanded
it.