III

LETTERS 1861-62. ON THE FRONTIER. MINING ADVENTURES.
JOURNALISTIC BEGINNINGS

Clemens went from the battle-front to Keokuk, where Orion was
preparing to accept the appointment prophesied by Madame Caprell.
Orion was a stanch Unionist, and a member of Lincoln's Cabinet had
offered him the secretaryship of the new Territory of Nevada. Orion
had accepted, and only needed funds to carry him to his destination.
His pilot brother had the funds, and upon being appointed "private"
secretary, agreed to pay both passages on the overland stage, which
would bear them across the great plains from St. Jo to Carson City.
Mark Twain, in Roughing It, has described that glorious journey and
the frontier life that followed it. His letters form a supplement
of realism to a tale that is more or less fictitious, though
marvelously true in color and background. The first bears no date,
but it was written not long after their arrival, August 14, 1861.
It is not complete, but there is enough of it to give us a very fair
picture of Carson City, "a wooden town; its population two thousand
souls."


Part of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens, in St. Louis:

(Date not given, but Sept, or Oct., 1861.)
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I hope you will all come out here someday. But I shan't
consent to invite you, until we can receive you in style. But I guess we
shall be able to do that, one of these days. I intend that Pamela shall