My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an
office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and
dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting
Governor in the Governor’s absence. A salary of eighteen hundred
dollars a year and the title of “Mr. Secretary,” gave to the
great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and
ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his distinction and his
financial splendor, but particularly and especially the long, strange
journey he was going to make, and the curious new world he was going to
explore. He was going to travel! I never had been away from home, and that
word “travel” had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he
would be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and
deserts, and among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes
and Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of
adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such a fine
time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero. And he would
see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe go about of an
afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of
shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside. And by and
by he would become very rich, and return home by sea, and be able to talk
as calmly about San Francisco and the ocean, and “the isthmus”
as if it was nothing of any consequence to have seen those marvels face to
face.
What I suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And
so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of private
secretary under him, it appeared to me that the heavens and the earth
passed away, and the firmament was rolled together as a scroll! I had
nothing more to desire. My contentment was complete.
At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not much packing
up was necessary, because we were going in the overland stage from the
Missouri frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only allowed a small
quantity of baggage apiece. There was no Pacific railroad in those fine
times of ten or twelve years ago—not a single rail of it. I only
proposed to stay in Nevada three months—I had no thought of staying
longer than that. I meant to see all I could that was new and strange, and
then hurry home to business. I little thought that I would not see the end
of that three-month pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long
years!
I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars, and in due
time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis wharf on board a
steamboat bound up the Missouri River.
We were six days going from St. Louis to “St. Jo.”—a
trip that was so dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left no more
impression on my memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead
of that many days. No record is left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a
confused jumble of savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked over
with one wheel or the other; and of reefs which we butted and butted, and
then retired from and climbed over in some softer place; and of sand-bars
which we roosted on occasionally, and rested, and then got out our
crutches and sparred over.
In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by land, for
she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and
clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain
said she was a “bully” boat, and all she wanted was more
“shear” and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of
stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to say so.
