February 20 Monday – Jim Gillis, Dick Stoker and Sam returned to Jackass Hill through a snowstorm, the first that Sam had seen in California [MTNJ 1: 81]. Billy Gillis remembered that Sam immediately wrote out some of the Angels Camp stories:
“When Sam came back he went to work on the Jumping Frog story, staying in the cabin while we went out to work at our claims and writing with a pencil. He used to say: ‘If I can write that story the way Ben Coon told it, that frog will jump around the world.’”

February 6 Monday – The men did some mining, but rains returned and they passed time telling tall tales and jokes. Benson writes:
“Most of the days at Angel’s Camp were spent by Mark and Jim and Stoker in the barroom of the dilapidated tavern. Here they found themselves in the company of a frequenter of the tavern, Ben Coon” [126].
Paine writes of Ben Coon:

February 3 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
Dined at the Frenchman’s, in order to let Dick see how he does things. Had Hellfire soup & the old regular beans & dishwater. The Frenchman has 4 kinds of soup which he furnishes to customers only on great occasions. They are popularly known among the Boarders as Hellfire, General Debility, Insanity & Sudden Death, but it is not possible to describe them….J & me [Jim Gillis]. talking like people 80 years old & toothless [MTNJ 1: 78].

January 29 Sunday – From Sam’s notebook:
“The old, old thing [Jim says]. We shall have to stand the weather, but as J says, we won’t stand this dishwater & beans any longer, by G—” [MTNJ 1: 76].

January 28 Saturday – “Rain & wind all day & all night—Chili beans & dishwater three times to-day, as usual, & some kind of ‘slum’ which the Frenchman called ‘hash.’ Hash be d—d” [MTNJ 1: 76].

January 26 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Rain, beans & dishwater—tapidaro [leather covering on a saddle]. beefsteak for a change—no use, could not bite it” [MTNJ 1: 76].

January 25 Wednesday – “—Same as above” [MTNJ 1: 76].
From Sam’s notebook, a brush with death:
Narrow Escape.—Dark rainy night—walked to extreme edge of a cut in solid rock 30 feet deep—& while standing upon the extreme verge for half a dozen seconds, meditating whether to proceed or not, heard a stream of water falling into the cut, & then, my eyes becoming more accustomed to the darkness, saw that if the last step taken had been a hand breath longer, must have plunged in to the abyss & lost my life. One of my feet projected over the edge as I stood [MTNJ 1:74].

January 24 Tuesday – “—Rained all day—meals as before” [MTNJ 1: 76].

January 3 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
“…returned with Jim Gillis, by way of Angel’s & Robinson’s Ferry, to Jackass Hill” [MTNJ 1: 70].

January and February – Sam’s fourth known notebook, and the first that might be called a “writer’s notebook,” was written during these months. The notebook contained a great amount of literary material that would be immediately useful in the Jumping Frog story, but also material that would later appear in Roughing It, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and others [MTNJ 1: 66-7].