The houses are mostly frame, unplastered, but "papered" inside with
flour-sacks sewed together, and the handsomer the "brand" upon the sacks
is, the neater the house looks. Occasionally, you stumble on a stone
house. On account of the dryness of the country, the shingles on the
houses warp till they look like short joints of stove pipe split
lengthwise.

(Remainder missing.)


In this letter is something of the "wild freedom of the West," which
later would contribute to his fame. The spirit of the frontier--of
Mark Twain--was beginning to stir him.

There had been no secretary work for him to do, and no provision for
payment. He found his profit in studying human nature and in
prospecting native resources. He was not interested in mining not
yet. With a boy named John Kinney he made an excursion to Lake
Bigler--now Tahoe--and located a timber claim, really of great
value. They were supposed to build a fence around it, but they were
too full of the enjoyment of camp-life to complete it. They put in
most of their time wandering through the stately forest or drifting
over the transparent lake in a boat left there by lumbermen. They
built themselves a brush house, but they did not sleep in it. In
'Roughing It' he writes, "It never occurred to us, for one thing;
and, besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough.
We did not wish to strain it."

They were having a glorious time, when their camp-fire got away from
them and burned up their claim. His next letter, of which the