Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/511

Rh

To Fort Churchill. 18th October.

The b'hoys and the stock were doomed to remain near the Carson Lake, where forage was abundant, while we made our way to Carson Valley—an arrangement not effected without excessive grumbling. At last the deserted ones were satisfied with the promise that they should exchange their desert quarters for civilization on Tuesday, and we were permitted to start. Crossing a long plain bordering on the Sink, we "snaked up" painfully a high divide which a little engineering skill would have avoided. From the summit, bleak with west wind, we could descry, at a distance of fifty miles, a snowy saddle-back—the Sierra Nevada. When the deep sand had fatigued our cattle, we halted for an hour to bait in a patch of land rich with bunch-grass. Descending from the eminence, we saw a gladdening sight: the Carson River, winding through its avenue of dark cotton-woods, and afar off the quarters and barracks of Fort Churchill. The nearer view was a hard-tamped plain, besprinkled with black and red porous stones and a sparse vegetation, with the ruddy and yellow autumnal hues; a miserable range of low, brown, sunburnt rocks and hills, whose ravines were choked with white sand-drifts, bounded the basin. The farther distance used it as a foil; the Sierra developed itself into four distinct magnificent tiers of snow-capped and cloud-veiled mountain, whose dissolving views faded into thin darkness as the sun disappeared behind their gigantic heads.

While we admired these beauties night came on; the paths intersected one another, and, despite the glow and gleam of a campfire in the distance, we lost our way among the tall cotton-woods. Dispersing in search of information, the marshal accidentally stumbled upon his predecessor in office, Mr. Smith, who hospitably insisted upon our becoming his guests. He led us to a farm-house already half roofed in against the cold, fetched the whisky for which our souls craved, gave to each a peach that we might be good boys, and finally set before us a prime beefsteak. Before sleeping we heard a number of "shooting stories." Where the corpse is, says the Persian, there will be the kites. A mining discovery never fails to attract from afar a flock of legal vultures—attorneys, lawyers, and judges. As the most valuable claims are mostly parted with by the ignorant fortunate for a song, it is usual to seek some flaw in the deed of sale, and a large proportion of the property finds its way into the pockets of the acute professional, who works on half profits. Consequently, in these parts there is generally a large amount of unscrupulous talent. One gentleman judge had knived a waiter and shot a senator; another, almost as "heavy on the shyoot," had in a single season killed one man and wounded another. My informants declared that in and about Carson a dead man for breakfast was the rule; besides accidents perpetually occurring to indifferent or to peace-making parties, they reckoned per annum fifty murders. In a peculiar