November 10 Saturday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Gold Hill Theatre, Gold Hill, Nevada. After the lecture Sam and Denis McCarthy were the victims of a prank robbery on the one-mile highway between Gold Hill and Virginia City called “the divide.” An all-night farewell party was promised in Virginia City. Sam and McCarthy were on foot. The “robbers” took about $125 in coin, and a $300 gold watch that Sam highly prized, a present to him by A.S. “Sandy” Baldwin and Theodore Winters [Clark 903]. The Enterprise revealed the next day that Sam might have suspected a practical joke. This elaborate plan of Steve Gillis to keep Sam in Virginia City for more lectures did not pan out. Sam was told about the hoax. Sam was ill again, and after a day’s rest in Virginia City, left for San Francisco. Gillis, in 1907, claimed everyone was in on the prank except De Quille and Goodman—the former was needed to write up a realistic account, and the latter frowned on practical jokes. Among the band of robbers, Gillis named the chief of police George Birdsall (who wanted to “insure the proper performance of the hold-up,” Leslie Blackburn, “Jimmy” Edington, Pat Holland and one or two unnamed others. [Sanborn 305-6; MTL 1: 366n4 for details of the “robbery,” or read Steve Gillis’ 1907 deathbed “confession” account in The Twainian, Jan-Feb 1956 p3].

Note: in William R. Gillis’ 1930 account in Gold Rush Days with Mark Twain, he identifies others involved:
Steve then hunted up Joe Harlowe, Little Hicks, Salty Boardman and John Russell, and they, too, became members of the Gang. Joe Harlowe and Hicks were to do the robbing, while Boardman and Russell were to remain in the shade so that Sam could distinguish them through the darkness. Steve was to wait in the composing room to receive Sam after the holdup [109]. Bret Harte’s review (signed F.B.H.) of Sam’s “Sandwich Islands” lecture of Oct. 2 ran in the Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican [Tenney 2].