Roughing It

Note: The contents of Chapter 2 correspond to Chapters 19-41 in print editions of the book.

The travelers are on the 16th day of their journey when Twain comes across some people from the Goshoot tribe (now known as the Goshute, a tribe of Western Shoshone Indigenous people whose homelands are in what is now Utah and Eastern Nevada). He spends a good deal of time enumerating what he perceives to be their limitations. Since they live in a very inhospitable area of Nevada, he concludes by saying, “If we cannot find it in our hearts to give those poor naked creatures our Christian sympathy and compassion, in God’s name let us at least not throw mud at them” (149).

As the coach travels through an area that Twain calls “the Great American Desert,” now known as the Forty Mile Desert in Nevada, the stage picks up an additional passenger who regales the travelers with an anecdote about the newspaper publisher Horace Greeley journeying over the same route on his way to give a lecture and the overzealous driver who intended to get him there on time. While the story is initially amusing, Twain is subjected to this same yarn from every fellow traveler he encounters in the territory. He says, “Within a period of six years I crossed and recrossed the Sierras between Nevada and California thirteen times by stage and listened to that deathless incident four hundred and eighty-one or eighty-two times” (155).

On the 20th day, the stagecoach arrives in Carson City, and the travelers gratefully disembark. The town is a ramshackle affair, and the brothers learn that no space has been prepared for them. They must find rooms that will also serve as their administrative office. Then, they have their first encounter with a windstorm, which Twain calls the “Washoe Zephyr” and describes in comically hyperbolic terms.

Twain and his brother take rooms at a boarding house that is already populated by more than a dozen of the governor’s patronage workers who followed him from New York. They are called the Brigade and are sent out on surveying expeditions to keep them out of the governor’s hair. On these excursions, they often find tarantulas that they bring back and keep as curiosities in glass jars in their room. One night, a strong zephyr tips over some of these containers, and the men must jump to safety or be bitten: “It was as dark as pitch, and one had to imagine the spectacle of those fourteen scant-clad men roosting gingerly on trunks and beds, for not a thing could be seen” (165).

Shortly after this incident, Twain realizes that his brother doesn’t really need an unpaid assistant, so he and a friend named Johnny go to explore Lake Tahoe and stake out a lumber claim there. Twain describes the beauty of the area and the health-giving properties of life in nature. However, a campfire burns out of control, and the claim of the would-be lumber barons dwindles to nothing. Consequently, the two young men return to Carson City.

Back in town, Twain is determined to buy a horse for himself. He knows very little about how to judge an animal’s quality but is impressed by a man who claims he has a “Genuine Mexican Plug” for sale. He does not know what a Mexican Plug is, but the mysterious quality of the name and the salesman’s charisma make him desperate to own one. After buying the horse, Twain learns that he is the proud owner of a bucking bronco and can’t find anybody willing to take the animal off his hands. He finally gives it to a man from Arkansas passing through the region.

Rejecting any further attempts at horse ownership, Twain is next struck with silver fever: “‘Prospecting parties’ were leaving for the mountains every day, and discovering and taking possession of rich silver-bearing lodes and ledges of quartz. Plainly this was the road to fortune” (193). He partners with two young lawyers and an aged blacksmith to stake a silver claim in Humboldt. This is a distance of about 275 miles. Because the party bought two very old horses to pull their wagon, they end up walking and pushing the wagon most of the way.

Belatedly recognizing that the newspapers have exaggerated the ease of mining silver or gold based on dubious assays of the ore in the region, Twain quits the business in disgust. He concludes that owning footage in a mine that can be sold to other hopefuls is the real ticket to wealth. Since Twain and his brother had previously bought footage in some Esmeralda mines, he sets off with two new companions to sell his rights there.

Along the way, the partners are forced to stay at an inn that becomes an island during a flash flood of the Carson River. Unable to stand the rude company and constant brawling, the travelers leave in the tracks of the first stagecoach to Carson City. During the night, a snowstorm begins, and the travelers are again lost in the wilderness. They try lighting a sagebrush fire without matches by shooting at the tinder: “Plainly, to light a fire with a pistol was an art requiring practice and experience, and the middle of a desert at midnight in a snow-storm was not a good place or time for the acquiring of the accomplishment” (234). Their horses run off at the noise.

Resigned to the prospect of freezing to death, Twain and his two partners repent their evil ways. One gives up card playing, another gives up drinking, and Twain resolves to stop smoking pipes. When dawn arrives, the men are still alive and within 15 feet of a stage station. Their horses had already found their way there the night before. All three men immediately resume their favorite vices, and Twain gives up his silver scheme entirely. He takes a job at a silver mill, which is only marginally less arduous than the mining operation itself, and he quits that position in a week.

Twain’s next obsession becomes a legendary cement mine. The rock is said to contain vast quantities of gold. He says, “Shortly after this I began to grow crazy, along with the rest of the population, about the mysterious and wonderful ‘cement mine,’ and to make preparations to take advantage of any opportunity that might offer” (258). The mine is supposedly located near Mono Lake, California, and a map of it is owned by an elusive character named Whitman. Twain joins up with some new partners who claim to know Whitman and decide to follow him if he is sighted in the area.

Twain and his companions hear that Whitman has secretly left town during the night, and they sneak after him. Unfortunately, they are soon tailed by a parade of other would-be prospectors. Realizing that their scheme has failed, they spend a week exploring Mono Lake instead. Twain says of it, “Mono, it is sometimes called, and sometimes the ‘Dead Sea of California’” (264). The area surrounding the lake is desolate and devoid of vegetation because of the chemical composition of the water. The alkaline lake can’t be used for drinking water but makes a very good shampoo or laundry detergent. Swimming in lye is also not encouraged.

After their adventure at Mono Lake, Twain’s party leaves for the silver mines in Esmeralda. While there, they learn that one of the current mines contains a blind lead, which is “a lead or ledge that does not ‘crop out’ above the surface” (280). This means that it can be claimed by whoever works the lead within 10 days of filing a claim on it. Twain’s current partner, Higbie, takes a foreman from the operating mine into his confidence and offers to cut him in for a third. The foreman agrees, and the claim is filed.

Higbie and Twain are elated and spend endless hours speculating about their future life as millionaires. Through a comedy of errors, all three men are called away on other business during the critical 10-day period. Each assumes that the other two are working the claim. When all three return, they discover that their time limit has elapsed, and a horde of other miners are staking out claims to the blind lead instead. Twain concludes, “We would have been millionaires if we had only worked with pick and spade one little day on our property and so secured our ownership!” (291).