The General never waited to hear the end of it.  He was always an impatient and irascible man, that way.  At the end of two months the fact that he had been played upon with a joke had managed to bore itself, like another Hoosac Tunnel, through the solid adamant of his understanding.

CHAPTER XXXV.

When we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback, we had an addition to the company in the person of Capt.  John Nye, the Governor’s brother.  He had a good memory, and a tongue hung in the middle.  This is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.  Capt.  John never suffered the talk to flag or falter once during the hundred and twenty miles of the journey.  In addition to his conversational powers, he had one or two other endowments of a marked character.  One was a singular “handiness” about doing anything and everything, from laying out a railroad or organizing a political party, down to sewing on buttons, shoeing a horse, or setting a broken leg, or a hen.  Another was a spirit of accommodation that prompted him to take the needs, difficulties and perplexities of anybody and everybody upon his own shoulders at any and all times, and dispose of them with admirable facility and alacrity—­hence he always managed to find vacant beds in crowded inns, and plenty to eat in the emptiest larders.  And finally, wherever he met a man, woman or child, in camp, inn or desert, he either knew such parties personally or had been acquainted with a relative of the same.  Such another traveling comrade was never seen before.  I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the way in which he overcame difficulties.  On the second day out, we arrived, very tired and hungry, at a poor little inn in the desert, and were told that the house was full, no provisions on hand, and neither hay nor barley to spare for the horses—­must move on.  The rest of us wanted to hurry on while it was yet light, but Capt.  John insisted on stopping awhile.  We dismounted and entered.  There was no welcome for us on any face.  Capt.  John began his blandishments, and within twenty minutes he had accomplished the following things, viz.:  found old acquaintances in three teamsters; discovered that he used to go to school with the landlord’s mother; recognized his wife as a lady whose life he had saved once in California, by stopping her runaway horse; mended a child’s broken toy and won the favor of its mother, a guest of the inn; helped the hostler bleed a horse, and prescribed for another horse that had the “heaves”; treated the entire party three times at the landlord’s bar; produced a later paper than anybody had seen for a week and sat himself down to read the news to a deeply interested audience.  The result, summed up, was as follows:  The hostler found plenty of feed for our horses; we had a trout supper, an exceedingly sociable time after it, good beds to sleep in, and a surprising breakfast in the morning—­and when we left, we left lamented by all!  Capt.  John had some bad traits, but he had some uncommonly valuable ones to offset them with.