Complete Letters of Mark Twain | Page 6

soundings, recalled from his piloting days. The name presently became
known up and down the Pacific coast. His articles were, copied and
commented upon. He was recognized as one of the foremost among a
little coterie of overland writers, two of whom, Mark Twain and Bret
Harte, were soon to acquire a world-wide fame.
He left Carson City one day, after becoming involved in a duel, the
result of an editorial squib written in Goodman's absence, and went
across the Sierras to San Francisco. The duel turned out farcically
enough, but the Nevada law, which regarded even a challenge or its
acceptance as a felony, was an inducement to his departure.
Furthermore, he had already aspired to a wider field of literary effort.
He attached himself to the Morning Call, and wrote occasionally for
one or two literary papers--the Golden Era and the
Californian---prospering well enough during the better part of the year.
Bret Harte and the rest of the little Pacific-slope group were also on the
staff of these papers, and for a time, at least, the new school of
American humor mustered in San Francisco.
The connection with the Call was not congenial. In due course it came
to a natural end, and Mark Twain arranged to do a daily San Francisco
letter for his old paper, the Enterprise. The Enterprise letters stirred up
trouble. They criticized the police of San Francisco so severely that the
officials found means of making the writer's life there difficult and
comfortless. With Jim Gillis, brother of a printer of whom he was fond,
and who had been the indirect cause of his troubles, he went up into
Calaveras County, to a cabin on jackass Hill. Jim Gillis, a lovable,
picturesque character (the Truthful James of Bret Harte), owned mining
claims. Mark Twain decided to spend his vacation in pocket-mining,
and soon added that science to his store of knowledge. It was a halcyon,
happy three months that he lingered there, but did not make his fortune;
he only laid the corner-stone.
They tried their fortune at Angel's Camp, a place well known to readers
of Bret Harte. But it rained pretty steadily, and they put in most of their
time huddled around the single stove of the dingy hotel of Angel's,
telling yarns. Among the stories was one told by a dreary narrator
named Ben Coon. It was about a frog that had been trained to jump, but
failed to win a wager because the owner of a rival frog had

surreptitiously loaded him with shot. The story had been circulated
among the camps, but Mark Twain had never heard it until then. The
tale and the tiresome fashion of its telling amused him. He made notes
to remember it.
Their stay in Angel's Camp came presently to an end. One day, when
the mining partners were following the specks of gold that led to a
pocket somewhere up the hill, a chill, dreary rain set in. Jim, as usual
was washing, and Clemens was carrying water. The "color" became
better and better as they ascended, and Gillis, possessed with the
mining passion, would have gone on, regardless of the rain. Clemens,
however, protested, and declared that each pail of water was his last.
Finally he said, in his deliberate drawl:
"Jim, I won't carry any more water. This work is too disagreeable. Let's
go to the house and wait till it clears up."
Gillis had just taken out a pan of earth. "Bring one more pail, Sam," he
pleaded.
"I won't do it, Jim! Not a drop! Not if I knew there was a million
dollars in that pan!"
They left the pan standing there and went back to Angel's Camp. The
rain continued and they returned to jackass Hill without visiting their
claim again. Meantime the rain had washed away the top of the pan of
earth left standing on the slope above Angel's, and exposed a handful of
nuggets-pure gold. Two strangers came along and, observing it, had sat
down to wait until the thirty-day claim-notice posted by Jim Gillis
should expire. They did not mind the rain--not with that gold in sight--
and the minute the thirty days were up they followed the lead a few
pans further, and took out-some say ten, some say twenty, thousand
dollars. It was a good pocket. Mark Twain missed it by one pail of
water. Still, it is just as well, perhaps, when one remembers The
Jumping Frog.
Matters having quieted down in San Francisco, he returned and took up
his work again. Artemus Ward, whom he had met in Virginia City,
wrote him for something to use in his (Ward's) new book. Clemens sent
the frog story, but he had been dilatory in preparing it, and when it
reached New