Mark Twain, A Biography 1866-1875 | Page 6

him with a subject. Steve's plan was
very simple: it was to relieve the lecturer of his funds by a friendly
highway robbery, and let an account of the adventure furnish the new
lecture.
In 'Roughing It' Mark Twain has given a version of this mock robbery
which is correct enough as far as it goes; but important details are
lacking. Only a few years ago (it was April, 1907), in his cabin on
jackass Hill, with Joseph Goodman and the writer of this history
present, Steve Gillis made his "death-bed" confession as is here set
down:
"Mark's lecture was given in Piper's Opera House, October 30, 1866.
The Virginia City people had heard many famous lectures before, but
they were mere sideshows compared with Mark's. It could have been
run to crowded houses for a week. We begged him to give the common
people a chance; but he refused to repeat himself. He was going down
to Carson, and was coming back to talk in Gold Hill about a week later,
and his agent, Denis McCarthy, and I laid a plan to have him robbed on
the Divide between Gold Hill and Virginia, after the Gold Hill lecture
was over and he and Denis would be coming home with the money.
The Divide was a good lonely place, and was famous for its hold-ups.
We got City Marshal George Birdsall into it with us, and took in Leslie
Blackburn, Pat Holland, Jimmy Eddington, and one or two more of
Sam's old friends. We all loved him, and would have fought for him in
a moment. That's the kind of friends Mark had in Nevada. If he had any
enemies I never heard of them.
"We didn't take in Dan de Quille, or Joe here, because Sam was Joe's
guest, and we were afraid he would tell him. We didn't take in Dan
because we wanted him to write it up as a genuine robbery and make a
big sensation. That would pack the opera-house at two dollars a seat to
hear Mark tell the story.
"Well, everything went off pretty well. About the time Mark was
finishing his lecture in Gold Hill the robbers all went up on the Divide
to wait, but Mark's audience gave him a kind of reception after his
lecture, and we nearly froze to death up there before he came along. By
and by I went back to see what was the matter. Sam and Denis were
coming, and carrying a carpet-sack about half full of silver between

them. I shadowed them and blew a policeman's whistle as a signal to
the boys when the lecturers were within about a hundred yards of the
place. I heard Sam say to Denis:
"'I'm glad they've got a policeman on the Divide. They never had one in
my day.'
"Just about that time the boys, all with black masks on and silver
dollars at the sides of their tongues to disguise their voices, stepped out
and stuck six-shooters at Sam and Denis and told them to put up their
hands. The robbers called each other 'Beauregard' and 'Stonewall
Jackson.' Of course Denis's hands went up, and Mark's, too, though
Mark wasn't a bit scared or excited. He talked to the robbers in his
regular fashion. He said:
"'Don't flourish those pistols so promiscuously. They might go off by
accident.'
"They told him to hand over his watch and money; but when he started
to take his hands down they made him put them up again. Then he
asked how they expected him to give them his valuables with his hands
up in the sky. He said his treasures didn't lie in heaven. He told them
not to take his watch, which was the one Sandy Baldwin and Theodore
Winters had given him as Governor of the Third House, but we took it
all the same.
"Whenever he started to put his hands down we made him put them up
again. Once he said:
"'Don't you fellows be so rough. I was tenderly reared.'
"Then we told him and Denis to keep their hands up for fifteen minutes
after we were gone--this was to give us time to get back to Virginia and
be settled when they came along. As we were going away Mark called:
"'Say, you forgot something.'
"'What is it?'
"Why, the carpet-bag.'
"He was cool all the time. Senator Bill Stewart, in his Autobiography,
tells a great story of how scared Mark was, and how he ran; but Stewart
was three thousand miles from Virginia by that time, and later got mad
at Mark because he made a joke about him in 'Roughing It'.
"Denis wanted to take his hands down pretty soon after we were gone,
but Mark said:
"'No, Denis, I'm used