t, although I was present at
the sale, and told the man the ground wasn't worth a d---n. He said he
had been hankering after a few feet in the H. and D. for a long time,
and he had got them at last, and he couldn't help thinking he had
secured a good thing. We went and looked at the ledges, and both of them
acknowledged that there was nothing in them but good "indications." Yet
the owners in the H. and D. will part with anything else sooner than
with feet in these ledges. Well, the work goes slowly--very slowly
on, in the tunnel, and we'll strike it some day. But--if we "strike it
rich,"--I've lost my guess, that's all. I expect that the way it got so
high in Cal. was, that Raish's brother, over there was offered $750.00
for 20 feet of it, and he refused.....

Couldn't go on the hill today. It snowed. It always snows here, I
expect.

Don't you suppose they have pretty much quit writing, at home?

When you receive your next 1/4 yr's salary, don't send any of it here
until after you have told me you have got it. Remember this. I am afraid
of that H. and D.

They have struck the ledge in the Live Yankee tunnel, and I told the
President, Mr. Allen, that it wasn't as good as the croppings. He said
that was true enough, but they would hang to it until it did prove rich.
He is much of a gentleman, that man Allen.

And ask Gaslerie why the devil he don't send along my commission as
Deputy Sheriff. The fact of my being in California, and out of his
country, wouldn't amount to a d---n with me, in the performance of my
official duties.

I have nothing to report, at present, except that I shall find out all I
want to know about this locality before I leave it.

How do the Records pay?

Yr. Bro.
SAM.

In one of the foregoing letters--the one dated May 11 there is a
reference to the writer's "Enterprise Letters." Sometimes, during
idle days in the camp, the miner had followed old literary impulses
and written an occasional burlesque sketch, which he had signed
"Josh," and sent to the Territorial Enterprise, at Virginia City.
--[One contribution was sent to a Keokuk paper, The Gate City, and a
letter written by Mrs. Jane Clemens at the time would indicate that
Mark Twain's mother did not always approve of her son's literary
efforts. She hopes that he will do better, and some time write
something "tha