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.
Copyrights
Roughing It from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
