Chapter XXV - Page 2

intruder, but a poor one. It was not even worth plucking
--except by the smallest of small fry office-seekers and such. Everybody
knew that Congress had appropriated only twenty thousand dollars a year
in greenbacks for its support--about money enough to run a quartz mill a
month. And everybody knew, also, that the first year's money was still
in Washington, and that the getting hold of it would be a tedious and
difficult process. Carson City was too wary and too wise to open up a
credit account with the imported bantling with anything like indecent
haste.

There is something solemnly funny about the struggles of a new-born
Territorial government to get a start in this world. Ours had a trying
time of it. The Organic Act and the "instructions" from the State
Department commanded that a legislature should be elected at such-and-
such a time, and its sittings inaugurated at such-and-such a date. It
was easy to get legislators, even at three dollars a day, although board
was four dollars and fifty cents, for distinction has its charm in Nevada
as well as elsewhere, and there were plenty of patriotic souls out of
employment; but to get a legislative hall for them to meet in was another
matter altogether. Carson blandly declined to give a room rent-free, or
let one to the government on credit.

But when Curry heard of the difficulty, he came forward, solitary and
alone, and shouldered the Ship of State over the bar and got her afloat
again. I refer to "Curry--Old Curry--Old Abe Curry." But for him the
legislature would have been obliged to sit in the desert. He offered his
large stone building just outside the capital limits, rent-free, and it
was gladly accepted. Then he built a horse-railroad from town to the
capitol, and carried the legislators gratis.

He also furnished pine benches and chairs for the legislature, and
covered the floors with clean saw-dust by way of carpet and spittoon
combined. But for Curry the government would have died in its tender
infancy. A canvas partition to separate the Senate from the House of
Representatives was put up by the Secretary, at a cost of three dollars
and forty cents, but the United States declined to pay for it. Upon
being reminded that the "instructions" permitted the payment of a liberal
rent for a legislative hall, and that that money was saved to the country
by Mr. Curry's generosity, the United States said that did not alter the
matter, and the three dollars and forty cents would be subtracted from
the Secretary's eighteen hundred dollar salary--and it was!

The matter of printing was from the beginning an interesting feature of
the new government's difficulties. The Secretary was sworn to obey his
volume of written "instructions," and these commanded him to do two
certain things without