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 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:”[1] 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.”
At Miller’s Station, which we reached at 2 30 P.M., there really was one pretty girl—which, according to the author of the Art of Pluck, induces proclivity to temulency. While the rain was heavy we sat round the hot stove, eating bread and cheese, sausages and anchovies, which Rabelais, not to speak of other honest drinkers, enumerates among provocatives to thirst. When we started at 4 P.M. through the cold rain, along the bad road up the river bed, to “liquor up” was manifestly a duty we owed to ourselves. And, finally, when my impatient companions betted a supper that we should reach Carson City before 9 P.M., and sealed it with a “smile,” I knew that the only way to win was to ply Mr. Kennedy, the driver, with as many pocula as possible.
Colder waxed the weather and heavier the rain as, diverging from the river, we ascended the little bench upon which Chinatown lies. The line of ranches and frame houses, a kind of length-without-breadth place, once celebrated in the gold-digging days, looked dreary and grim in the evening gloom. At 5 30 P.M. we were still fourteen miles distant from our destination. The benches and the country round about had been turned topsy-turvy in the search for precious metal, and the soil was still burrowed with shaft and tunnel, and crossed at every possible spot by flumes, at which the natives of the Flowery Land still found it worth their while to work. Beyond China-town we quitted the river, and in the cold darkness of night we slowly began to breast the steep ascent of a long divide.
We had been preceded on the way by a young man, driving in a light cart a pair of horses, which looked remarkable by the side of the usual Californian teams, three pair with the near wheeler ridden. Arriving at a bad place, he kindly called out to us, but before his warning could be taken a soft and yielding sensation, succeeded by a decided leaning to the right, and ending with a loud crash, announced an overturn. In due time we were extricated, the pieces were picked up, and, though the gun was broken, the bottle of cocktail fortunately remained whole. ‘The judge, probably and justly offended by my evil habit of laughing out of season, informed us that he had never been thrown before, an announcement which made us expect more “spills.” The unhappy Kennedy had jumped off before the wheels pointed up hill; he had not lost a hoof, it is true, on the long march, but he wept spirits and water at the disappointing thought that the ambulance, this time drawn by his best team, and laden with all the dignities, had come to grief, and would not be fit to be seen. After 100 yards more another similar series of sensations announced a repetition of the scene, which deserved the epitaph,
“Hic jacet amphora vini.”
This time, however, falling down a bank, we “came to smash;” the bottle (eheu!) was broken, so was the judge’s head, while the ear of the judgeling—serve him right for chaffing!—was cut, the pistols and powder-flasks were half buried in the sand, a variety of small objects were lost, and the flying gear of the ambulance was a perfect wreck. Unwilling to risk our necks by another trial, we walked over the rest of the rough ground, and, conducted by the good Croly, found our way to “Dutch Nick’s,” a ranch and tavern apparently much frequented by the teamsters and other roughs, who seemed, honest fellows! deeply to regret that the accident had not been much more serious.
Remounting after a time, we sped forward, and sighted in front a dark line, but partially lit up about the flanks, with a brilliant illumination in the centre, the Kursaal of Mr. Hopkins, the local Crockford. Our entrance to Penrod House, the Fifth Avenue of Carson City, was by no means of a triumphal order; Nature herself seemed to sympathize with us, besplashing us with tears heavier than Mr. Kennedy’s. But after a good supper and change of raiment, a cigar, “something warm,” and the certainty of a bed, combined to diffuse over our minds the calm satisfaction of having surmounted our difficulties tant bien que mal.
[1] 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.