Tell Sammy I will lay a claim for him, and he must come out and attend to
it. He must get rid of that propensity for tumbling down, though, for
when we get fairly started here, I don't think we shall have time to pick
up those who fall.....

That is Stoughter's house, I expect, that Cousin Jim has moved into.
This is just the country for Cousin Jim to live in. I don't believe it
would take him six months to make $100,000 here, if he had 3,000 dollars
to commence with. I suppose he can't leave his family though.

Tell Mrs. Benson I never intend to be a lawyer. I have been a slave
several times in my life, but I'll never be one again. I always intend
to be so situated (unless I marry,) that I can "pull up stakes" and clear
out whenever I feel like it.

We are very thankful to you, Pamela, for the papers you send. We have
received half a dozen or more, and, next to letters, they are the most
welcome visitors we have.
Write oftener, Pamela.
Yr. Brother
SAM.


The "Cousin Jim" mentioned in this letter is the original of the
character of Colonel Sellers. Whatever Mark Twain's later opinion of
Cousin Jim Lampton's financial genius may have been, he seems to have
respected it at this time.

More than three months pass until we have another letter, and in that
time the mining fever had become well seated. Mark Twain himself was