While we admired these beauties night came on; the paths intersected one another, and, despite the glow and gleam of a camp-fire in the distance, we lost our way among the tall cotton-woods. Dispersing in search of information, the marshal accidentally stumbled upon his predecessor in office, Mr. Smith, who hospitably insisted upon our becoming his guests. He led us to a farm-house already half roofed in against the cold, fetched the whisky for which our souls craved, gave to each a peach that we might be good boys, and finally set before us a prime beefsteak. Before sleeping we heard a number of “shooting stories.” Where the corpse is, says the Persian, there will be the kites. A mining discovery never fails to attract from afar a flock of legal vultures—attorneys, lawyers, and judges. As the most valuable claims are mostly parted with by the ignorant fortunate for a song, it is usual to seek some flaw in the deed of sale, and a large proportion of the property finds its way into the pockets of the acute professional, who works on half profits.FIGHTING LAWYERS. Consequently, in these parts there is generally a large amount of unscrupulous talent. One gentleman judge had knived a waiter and shot a senator; another, almost as “heavy on the shyoot,” had in a single season killed one man and wounded another. My informants declared that in and about Carson a dead man for breakfast was the rule; besides accidents perpetually occurring to indifferent or to peace-making parties, they reckoned per annum fifty murders. In a peculiar fit of liveliness, an intoxicated gentleman will discharge his revolver in a ballroom, and when a “shyooting” begins in the thin-walled frame houses, those not concerned avoid bullets and splinters by jumping into their beds. During my three days’ stay at Carson City I heard of three murders. A man “heavy on the shoulder,” who can “hit out straight from the hip,” is a valuable acquisition. The gambler or professional player, who in the Eastern States is exceptionably peaceful, because he fears the publicity of a quarrel, here must distinguish himself as a fighting-man. A curious story was told to illustrate how the ends of justice might, at a pinch, in the case of a popular character, be defeated. A man was convicted of killing his adversary after saying to the by-standers, “Stoop down while I shoot the son of a dog (female).” Counsel for the people showed malice prepense; counsel for defense pleaded that his client was rectus in curia, and manifestly couldn’t mean a man, but a dog. The judge ratified the verdict of acquittal.
Such was the state of things, realizing the old days of the Californian gold-diggings, when I visited in 1860 Carson City. Its misrule, or rather want of rule, has probably long since passed away, leaving no more traces than a dream. California has been transformed by her Vigilance Committee, so ignorantly and unjustly declaimed against in Europe and in the Eastern States of the Union, from a savage autonomy to one of the most orderly of the American republics, and San Francisco, her capital, from a den of thieves and prostitutes, gamblers and miners, the offscourings of nations, to a social status not inferior to any of the most favored cities.
Hurrah again—in! 19th October.
This day will be the last of my diary. We have now emerged from the deserts of the Basin State, and are debouching upon lands where coaches and the electric telegraph ply.
After a cold night at the hospitable Smith’s, and losing the cattle, we managed to hitch to, and crossed, not without difficulty, the deep bed of the Carson River, which runs over sands glittering with mica. A little beyond it we found the station-house, and congratulated ourselves that we had escaped a twelve hours’ durance vile in its atmosphere of rum, korn schnapps, stale tobacco, flies, and profane oaths, not to mention the chance of being “wiped out” in a “difference” between a soldier and a gambler, or a miner and a rider.
From the station-house we walked, accompanied by a Mr. O.—who, after being an editor in Texas, had become a mail-rider in Utah Territory—to the fort. It was, upon the principle of its eastern neighbors, a well-disposed cantonment, containing quarters for the officers and barracks for the men. Fort ChurchillFORT CHURCHILL. had been built during the last few months: it lodged about two companies of infantry, and required at least 2000 men. Captain F. F. Flint (6th Regiment) was then commanding, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Swords, a deputy quarter-master general, was on a tour of inspection. We went straight to the quarter-master’s office, and there found Lieutenant Moore, who introduced us to all present, and supplied us with the last newspapers and news. The camp was Teetotalist, and avoided cards like good Moslems: we were not, however, expected to drink water except in the form of strong waters, and the desert had disinclined us to abstain from whisky. Finally, Mr. Byrne, the sutler, put into our ambulance a substantial lunch, with a bottle of cocktail, and another of cognac, especially intended to keep the cold out.
The dull morning had threatened snow, and shortly after noon the west wind brought up cold heavy showers, which continued with intervals to the end of the stage. Our next station was Miller’s, distant 15 to 16 miles. The road ran along the valley of Carson River, whose trees were a repose to our eyes, and we congratulated ourselves when we looked down the stiff clay banks, 30 feet high, and wholly unfenced, that our journey was by day. The desert was now “done.” At every few miles was a drinking “calaboose:”[233] where sheds were not a kettle hung under a tree, and women peeped out of the log huts. They were probably not charming, but, next to a sea voyage, a desert march is the finest cosmetic ever invented. We looked upon each as if
“Her face was like the Milky Way i’ the sky,
A meeting of gentle lights without a name.”
[233] The Spanish is calabozo, the French calabouse. In the Hispano-American countries it is used as a “common jail” or a “dog-hole,” and, as usual, is converted into a verb.