Chapter II

The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph
was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dollars
apiece for tickets per overland coach to Carson City, Nevada.

The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty breakfast, and
hurried to the starting-place. Then an inconvenience presented itself
which we had not properly appreciated before, namely, that one cannot
make a heavy traveling trunk stand for twenty-five pounds of baggage--
because it weighs a good deal more. But that was all we could take--
twenty-five pounds each. So we had to snatch our trunks open, and make a
selection in a good deal of a hurry. We put our lawful twenty-five
pounds apiece all in one valise, and shipped the trunks back to St. Louis
again. It was a sad parting, for now we had no swallow-tail coats and
white kid gloves to wear at Pawnee receptions in the Rocky Mountains, and
no stove-pipe hats nor patent-leather boots, nor anything else necessary
to make life calm and peaceful. We were reduced to a war-footing. Each
of us put on a rough, heavy suit of clothing, woolen army shirt and
"stogy" boots included; and into the valise we crowded a few white
shirts, some under-clothing and such things. My brother, the Secretary,
took along about four pounds of United States statutes and six pounds of
Unabridged Dictionary; for we did not know--poor innocents--that such
things could be bought in San Francisco on one day and received in Carson
City the next. I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith &
Wesson's seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homoeopathic pill,
and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult. But I thought
it was grand. It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It only had
one fault--you could not hit anything with it. One of our "conductors"
practiced awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and
behaved herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving about,
and he got to shooting at other things, she came to grief. The Secretary
had a small-sized Colt's revolver strapped around him for protection
against the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it
uncapped. Mr. George Bemis was dismally formidable. George Bemis was
our fellow-traveler.

We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original
"Allen" revolver, such as irreverent people called a "pepper-box." Simply
drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger
came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over,
and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball.
To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat
which was probably never done with an "Allen" in the world. But George's
was a reliable weapon,