"The man paid the one hundred and ten dollars and hastily left the court and the city."
Miller was the next to speak. Said he: "Once in Idaho I heard a specimen of grim humor which entertained me immensely. There was a man up there who owned a train of pack mules and made a living by packing in goods to the traders and packing out ore to be sent away to the reduction works. He was caught in a storm midway between Challis and Powder Flat. It was mid-winter; the thermometer at Challis marked thirty-four degrees below zero. He was out in the storm and cold two days and one night, and his sufferings must have been indescribable. When safely housed and ministered to at last a friend said to him: 'George, that was a tough experience, was it not?'
"'Oh, regular business should never be called tough,' said he, 'but since I began to get warm I have been thinking that, if I make money enough, may be in three or four years I will get married, if I can deceive some woman into making the arrangement. If I should succeed, and if after a reasonable time a boy should be born to us, and if the youngster should "stand off" the colic, teething, measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever and falling down stairs, and grow to be ten or twelve years old, and have some sense, if I ever tell him the story of the past two days of my life and he don't cry his eyes out, I will beat him to death, sure.'"
The Professor was reminded by the anecdote of something which transpired in Belmont, Nevada, the previous winter. Said he: "I went to Belmont to examine a property last winter and while there Judge —— came in from a prospecting trip down into the upper edge of Death Valley. I saw him as he drove into town, and went to meet him. He was in no very good spirits. On the way to his office he said: 'I was persuaded against my better judgment to go on that trip. The thief who coaxed me away told a wonderful story. He had been there; he had seen the mine, but had been driven away by the Shoshones; he knew every spring and camping place. It would be just a pleasure trip. So, like an idiot, I went with him. It was twice as far as he said, and we got out of food; he could not find one particular spring, and we were forty hours without water. We had to camp in the snow, and the only pleasure I had in the whole journey was in seeing my companion slip and sit down squarely on a Spanish bayonet plant. It was a double pleasure, indeed; one pleasure to see him sit down and another pleasure to see him get right up again without resting at all, and with a look on his face as though a serious mistake had been made somewhere.'
"By this time we had reached the Judge's office. On the desk lay a score of letters which had been accumulating during his absence. Begging me to excuse him for five minutes, he sat down and commenced to run through his mail.
"Suddenly he stopped, seized a pen and wrote rapidly for two or three minutes. Then he threw down the pen and begged my attention. First he read a letter which was dated somewhere in Iowa. The writer stated that he had a few thousand dollars, but had determined to leave Iowa and seek some new field, and asked the Judge's advice about removing to Nevada. I asked the Judge if he knew the man.
"'Of course not,' said he. 'He has found my name in some directory, and so has written at random. He has probably written similar letters to twenty other men. Possibly he is writing a book descriptive of the Far West by an actual observer,' continued the Judge.
"'How are you going to reply?' I asked.
"'That is just the point,' he answered. 'I have written and I want you to tell me if I have done about the right thing. Listen.'
"At this he read his letter. It was in these identical words: