ROUGHING IT

ROUGHING IT

by Mark Twain

1880

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.

ROUGHING IT
BY MARK TWAIN. (SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.)

PREFATORY.
This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about which no books have been written by persons who were on the ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmination of the silver-mining fever in Nevada -a curious episode, in some respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has occurred in the land; and the only one, indeed, that is likely to occur in it.
Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not justification.
THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
My Brother appointed Secretary of Nevada--I Envy His Prospective Adventures--Am Appointed Private Secretary Under Him--My Contentment Complete--Packed in One Hour--Dreams and Visions--On the Missouri River-- A Bully Boat

CHAPTER II.
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 Mule--Schedule of Luxuries--We Leave the "States"--"Our Coach"--Mails for the Indians--Between a Wink and an Earthquake--A Modern Sphynx and How She Entertained Us--A Sociable Heifer

CHAPTER III.
"The Thoroughbrace is Broke"--Mails Delivered Properly--Sleeping Under Difficulties--A Jackass Rabbit Meditating, and on Business--A Modern Gulliver--Sage-brush--Overcoats as an Article of Diet--Sad Fate of a Camel--Warning to Experimenters

CHAPTER IV.
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--Our Worthy Landlord-- "Fixings and Things"--An Exile--Slumgullion--A Well Furnished Table--The Landlord Astonished--Table Etiquette--Wild Mexican Mules--Stage-coaching and Railroading

CHAPTER V.
New Acquaintances--The Cayote--A Dog's Experiences--A Disgusted Dog--The Relatives of the Cayote--Meals Taken Away from Home

CHAPTER VI.
The Division Superintendent--The Conductor--The Driver--One Hundred and Fifty Miles' Drive Without Sleep--Teaching a Subordinate--Our Old Friend Jack and a Pilgrim--Ben Holliday Compared to Moses

CHAPTER VII.
Overland City--Crossing the Platte--Bemis's Buffalo Hunt--Assault by a Buffalo--Bemis's Horse Goes Crazy--An Impromptu Circus--A New Departure-- Bemis Finds Refuge in a Tree--Escapes Finally by a Wonderful Method

CHAPTER VIII.
The Pony Express--Fifty Miles Without Stopping--"Here he Comes"--Alkali Water--Riding an Avalanche--Indian Massacre

CHAPTER IX.
Among the Indians--An Unfair Advantage--Laying on our Arms--A Midnight Murder--Wrath of Outlaws--A Dangerous, yet Valuable Citizen

CHAPTER X.
History of Slade--A Proposed Fist-fight--Encounter with Jules--Paradise of Outlaws--Slade as Superintendent--As Executioner--A Doomed Whisky Seller--A Prisoner--A Wife's Bravery--An Ancient Enemy Captured--Enjoying a Luxury--Hob-nobbing with Slade--Too Polite--A Happy Escape

CHAPTER XI.
Slade in Montana--"On a Spree"--In Court--Attack on a Judge--Arrest by the Vigilantes--Turn out of the Miners--Execution of Slade--Lamentations of His Wife--Was Slade a Coward?

CHAPTER XII.
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 Streams--An Unreliable Letter Carrier--Meeting of Old Friends--A Spoiled Watermelon--Down the Mountain- -A Scene of Desolation--Lost in the Dark--Unnecessary Advice--U.S. Troops and Indians--Sublime Spectacle--Another Delusion Dispelled--Among the Angels

CHAPTER XIII.
Mormons and Gentiles--Exhilarating Drink, and its Effect on Bemis--Salt Lake City--A Great Contrast--A Mormon Vagrant--Talk with a Saint--A Visit to the "King"--A Happy Simile

CHAPTER XIV.
Mormon Contractors--How Mr. Street Astonished Them--The Case Before Brigham Young, and How he Disposed of it--Polygamy Viewed from a New Position

CHAPTER XV.
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--Fathering the Foundlings--It Resembled Him --The Family Bedstead

CHAPTER XVI
The Mormon Bible--Proofs of its Divinity--Plagiarism of its Authors-- Story of Nephi--Wonderful Battle--Kilkenny Cats Outdone

CHAPTER XVII.
Three Sides to all Questions--Everything "A Quarter"--Shriveled Up-- Emigrants and White Shirts at a Discount--"Forty-Niners"--Above Par--Real Happiness

CHAPTER XVIII.
Alkali Desert--Romance of Crossing Dispelled--Alkali Dust--Effect on the Mules--Universal Thanksgiving

CHAPTER XIX.
The Digger Indians Compared with the Bushmen of Africa--Food, Life and Characteristics--Cowardly Attack on a Stage Coach--A Brave Driver--The Noble Red Man

CHAPTER XX.
The Great American Desert--Forty Miles on Bones--Lakes Without Outlets-- Greely's Remarkable Ride--Hank Monk, the Renowned Driver--Fatal Effects of "Corking" a Story--Bald-Headed Anecdote

CHAPTER XXI.
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