I had just registered at the hotel, and was chatting with the group of men crowded round me, when a generous, good-natured gentleman edged through the cordon and grasped my hand.
"I'm going to take charge of you," he said, with a comical wink of the eye; "you are my guest while in town."
The next moment I found myself launched in an offhand lecture on my travels. And I should have talked myself hoarse had not my host led me out to his carriage. After telling the landlord to make Coonskin comfortable, I asked who the gentleman was who had taken me in custody.
"Why, he's Sam D——s; you've heard of Sam, of course—editor, writer and humorist—famous story-teller—the biggest 'josher' on earth——." But that was enough. I fled.
Indeed, Sam's reputation was known to me long before I arrived on his stamping ground. I leaped into the buggy, and we drove for his country home.
"Keep yer hand on yer pocket-book!" shouted one of my host's intimates; whereupon Sam turned to me with affected seriousness and observed, "Good advice. But I took the precaution to leave my money and watch at the office. I heard of your capture for donkey-stealing back in Iowa."
On the drive my host recalled many happenings of the golden days of the Comstock, which made me lose all reckoning of the present. Soon we had reached his ranch. When I met his family I was ready to believe some of his accounts of the practical jokes he claimed to have played on his fellows. I was somewhat disconcerted when he introduced me to his wife as a noted "road agent"—an old friend of his who had wavered from the path of rectitude—whom he desired to feed and hide from the sheriff's possè, hot on his trail. But I was amused when his good wife, who of all would be expected to know him best, apparently took his word for granted, and, regarding me with nervous suspicion, started to get me a quick lunch. But Sam delayed her a moment.
"Dan wants to entrust this $25,000 with me until he has eluded the possè," he said to his wife, taking my weighty saddle-bags and passing them to her. "There is no fire in the front-room stove, is there? Might shove 'em in there." She accepted the trust so seriously that I laughed outright, and exploded the joke. My hostess chuckled good-naturedly, and said that most any woman might take me for a bandit. I did look disreputable.
Adjoining the ranch were a few acres owned by "Mrs. Langtry," and sold to her by Sam, so he said, but how he made the deal is too good a story to be injured by my telling. I was up early next morning. In spite of my host's urgent invitation to remain another day, I drove to town with Sam after breakfast. There I was shown several places of interest.
Dark and threatening clouds hung over the mountains and alarmed me. My friend cautioned me to hasten across, if I would avoid the storm. By two o'clock my outfit left Carson and began the ascent of the steep trail over the pass to Glenbrook, a lumber camp on the shore of Lake Tahoe. Dr. Benton advised me to telephone him from Glenbrook, if it snowed so hard as to endanger us before crossing the second summit, in which case he volunteered to dispatch at once a relief expedition, with horses to break the trail and render me a safe conduct beyond the snow belt. I shall always remember the veterinary's thoughtfulness. My friend Sam must have been interested in the plan.