... in Meadow Lake (Nevada County) on 26 October and remained overnight, traveling south early the next morning to Cisco (formerly Heaton Station, Placer County). From there they took the Pioneer stage to Virginia City, arriving that same evening.   Mark Twain Project

October 27 Saturday – Sam and McCarthy arrived back at Virginia City about ten p.m.

October 29 Monday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to Robert M. Howland, an old friend from his Nevada mining days, asking if Carson City would turn out to hear Sam lecture. Sam was unsure of the reception he would get there, due to the Sanitary Ball miscegenation prank [MTL 1: 362].
Sam also wrote to Henry R. Mighels to arrange a hall for his lecture:

October 30 Tuesday – The Territorial Enterprise announced that Sam would perform in Virginia City the following night. “We expect to see the very mountains shake with a tempest of applause” [MTL 5: 682n].

October 31 Wednesday – Sam gave one performance in Virginia City—the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Maguire’s Opera House. It was a glorious homecoming. The Enterprise wrote, “an immense success” [Sanborn 302]. Sam met with old friends, Dan De Quille, Joe Goodman and Steve Gillis. Gillis urged Sam to speak again at the Opera House, but Sam did not want to repeat himself in any one town. Steven hatched a plot to pull a fake robbery of Sam in Gold Hill as a way of getting Sam to lecture again on a new topic [303].

November 1 Thursday – Sam sent a telegraph to Abraham V.Z. Curry (1815-1873), John Neely Johnson (1825-1872), Robert M. Howland and others to confirm he would be in Carson City the next day to speak there on Saturday evening. Howland had sent Sam a letter dated Oct. 30 with over 100 signatures of prominent Carson City citizens who wanted to hear Sam’s “Sandwich Islands” lecture. The list included Henry Goode Blasdel (1825-1900), Governor of Nevada. Sam wrote to him, agreeing to speak on the stage of the Carson Theatre and:

November 2 Friday ca. – On or about this day Sam wrote from Virginia City to Catherine C. (Kate) Lampton and Annie E. and Samuel E. Moffett. Kate was Sam’s first cousin; Annie and Sammy were Pamela Moffett’s children, Sam’s niece and nephew. Teasing Annie again about the “bullrushers” story, Sam asked, How is old Moses that was rescued from the bulrushes & keeps a second-hand clothing-store in Market Street? Dear Sammy—Keep up your lick & you will become a great minister of the gospel some day, & then I shall be satisfied.

November 3 Saturday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Carson Theatre in Carson City.

November 7 Wednesday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Washoe City, Nevada sometime between these dates [MTL 1: 366n3; MTPO “Mark Twain on the Platform”]. “Card from Mark Twain” dated Nov. 1 ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.].

November 8 Thursday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Dayton, Nevada, probably at the Odeon Hall Saloon, where Sam sometimes drank and played billiards. He arrived in Virginia City “about 12 in the evening…from Dayton” [Clark 903].

November 9 Friday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Silver City, Nevada.

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].

November 11 Sunday – Sam’s CARD TO THE HIGHWAYMEN ran in the Enterprise:

November 12 Monday – At noon, Sam and Denis McCarthy left Virginia City by the Pioneer Stage via Donner Lake route for San Francisco. Just as the stage was leaving from in front of the Wells Fargo office, the chief of police George Birdsall handed Sam a package containing his watch, money, two jackknives, corkscrew, toothpick, three lead pencils, and the masks worn by the “robbers.” According to this account, Sam refused to shake hands with Birdsall and ordered the stage driver to go on. McCarthy was a likely accomplice to the joke [Clark 903-4].