I launched out as a lecturer, now, with great boldness. I had the field
all to myself, for public lectures were almost an unknown commodity in
the Pacific market. They are not so rare, now, I suppose. I took an old
personal friend along to play agent for me, and for two or three weeks we
roamed through Nevada and California and had a very cheerful time of it. Two days before I lectured in Virginia City, two stagecoaches were robbed within two miles of the town. The daring act was committed just at dawn, by six masked men, who sprang up alongside the coaches, presented revolvers at the heads of the drivers and passengers, and commanded a general dismount. Everybody climbed down, and the robbers took their watches and every cent they had. Then they took gunpowder and blew up the express specie boxes and got their contents. The leader of the robbers was a small, quick-spoken man, and the fame of his vigorous manner and his intrepidity was in everybody's mouth when we arrived.
The night after instructing Virginia, I walked over the desolate "divide" and down to Gold Hill, and lectured there. The lecture done, I stopped to talk with a friend, and did not start back till eleven. The "divide" was high, unoccupied ground, between the towns, the scene of twenty midnight murders and a hundred robberies. As we climbed up and stepped out on this eminence, the Gold Hill lights dropped out of sight at our backs, and the night closed down gloomy and dismal. A sharp wind swept the place, too, and chilled our perspiring bodies through.
"I tell you I don't like this place at night," said Mike the agent.
"Well, don't speak so loud," I said. "You needn't remind anybody that we
are here."
Just then a dim figure approached me from the direction of Virginia—a
man, evidently. He came straight at me, and I stepped aside to let him
pass; he stepped in the way and confronted me again. Then I saw that he
had a mask on and was holding something in my face—I heard a click-click
and recognized a revolver in dim outline. I pushed the barrel aside with
my hand and said:
"Don't!"
He ejaculated sharply:
"Your watch! Your money!"
I said:
"You can have them with pleasure—but take the pistol away from my face, please. It makes me shiver."
"No remarks! Hand out your money!"
"Certainly—I—"
"Put up your hands! Don't you go for a weapon! Put 'em up! Higher!"
I held them above my head.
A pause. Then:
"Are you going to hand out your money or not?"
I dropped my hands to my pockets and said:
"Certainly! I—"
"Put up your hands! Do you want your head blown off? Higher!"
I put them above my head again.
Another pause.
"Are you going to hand out your money or not? Ah-ah—again? Put up your
hands! By George, you want the head shot off you awful bad!"
"Well, friend, I'm trying my best to please you. You tell me to give up
my money, and when I reach for it you tell me to put up my hands. If you
would only—. Oh, now—don't! All six of you at me! That other man
will get away while.—Now please take some of those revolvers out of my
face—do, if you please! Every time one of them clicks, my liver comes
up into my throat! If you have a mother—any of you—or if any of you
have ever had a mother—or a—grandmother—or a—"
"Cheese it! Will you give up your money, or have we got to—. There—there—none of that! Put up your hands!"
"Gentlemen—I know you are gentlemen by your—"
"Silence! If you want to be facetious, young man, there are times and
places more fitting. This is a serious business."
"You prick the marrow of my opinion. The funerals I have attended in my
time were comedies compared to it. Now I think—"
"Curse your palaver! Your money!—your money!—your money! Hold!—put
up your hands!"
"Gentlemen, listen to reason. You see how I am situated—now don't put
those pistols so close—I smell the powder.
"You see how I am situated. If I had four hands—so that I could hold up
two and—"
"Throttle him! Gag him! Kill him!"
"Gentlemen, don't! Nobody's watching the other fellow. Why don't some
of you—. Ouch! Take it away, please!
"Gentlemen, you see that I've got to hold up my hands; and so I can't take
out my money—but if you'll be so kind as to take it out for me, I will
do as much for you some—"
"Search him Beauregard—and stop his jaw with a bullet, quick, if he wags
it again. Help Beauregard, Stonewall."