Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-05-12
CALIFORNIA.
The Facts In the Great Land.Slide
Case. q TO Iti a
BY MARK TWAIN.

1t was in the early days of Nevada
Territory. The mountains are very high
and steep about Carson, Eagle and
Washoe valleys-very high and steep,
and so when the snow goes to melting off
fast in the spring and the warm surface
earth begins to moisten and soften, the
disastrous land-slides commence. You
do not know what a landslide is, unless
you have lived in that country and seen
the whole side of mountain taken of
some fine morning and deposited down
in the valley, leaving vast, treeless, un-
slightly scar upon the mountain $ front to
keep the circumstance fresh in your
memory all the years that you may go
on living within seventy miles OF that
place. Tg0
General Buncombe was shipped out to
Nevada in the invoice of Territorial of
fcers, to be United States Attorney. He
considered himself lawyer of parts,
and he very much wanted an opportunity
to manifest it--partly for 'he pure graft
fcation of it and partly because his sal
airy was Territorially meagre (which is a
strong expression). Now, the older citi-
zens of a new territory look upon the
rest Of the world with calm, unmalig-
nant contempt as long as it keeps out OF
the way-when it gets in the way they
snub it. Sometimes this latter takes the
shape of a practical joke.
One morning Dick Sides rode furiously
up to General Buncombe's door in Car
SON City and rushed into his presence
without stopping to tie his horse. He
seemed much excited. He told the
General that he wanted him to defend
suit for him and would pay him five
hundred dollars if he achieved vic
tory. And, then, with violent gestures
and world of profanity, he poured out
his grief. He said it was pretty well
known that for some years he had been
farming (or ranching as the more GUS
tomary term is), in Washoe District
and making a successful thing of it, and
furthermore it was known that his ranch
was situated just in the edge of the val
ley, and that Tom Morgan owned a ranch
Immediately above it on the mountain
side. And now the trouble was that
one of those hated and dreaded land
slides had come and slid Morgan rancho,
fences, cabins, cattle, barns and every
thing down on top Of his rancho, and ex-
actly covered up every single vestige of
his property to depth of about six
feet. Morgan was in possession and
refused to vacate the premises-said he
was occupying his own cabin and not
interfering. with anybody else's-and
said cabin was standing ON the same
dirt and same rancho it had always stood
on, and would like to see any one make
him vacate. :.
-"And when ] reminded him. said
Sides. weeping, " that 1t was on The top of
my rancho and that he was trespassingg, he
had the Internal meanness to ask why
didn't | stay on my rancho and hold pos
session when / see him coming2 Why
didn't stay on it, tie blathering lunatic
and. by George when | heard that
racket and Looked up that hill it was just
like the whole world was ripping and
tearing down that mountain side-trees
were going end over end in the air, and
rocks about as big as house jumping
about a thousand feet high and bursting
into ten million pieces; cattle, literally
turned inside out, and coming head on
with their tails hanging ont between their
tee.h-oh, splinters and cord wood, and
thunder aud lightning and hail and
snow, odds and ends Of hay stacks and
things, and dust-oh, dust amt no name
for it-it was Just clouds, solid clouds of
dustl-and in the midst Of all that wreck
and destruction sot that cuged Morgan
on his gatepost, a-wonderingwhyl didn't
stay and hold possession-likelyl unphl
/ j6s3tock one glimpse ofthat speckticle,
General and | lit out n the country in
three jumps exactly.
But what grinds me is that that Nor
gan hangs on there, and won move of
that ranche-says it is his'n, and he's
going to keep it-likes il better'n he did
when Is gas higher up the hill. Mad
Well. I've been sc mad for two days i
couldn't find my way % town-been
Handering round in the brush In . sisrv-
ing esndition-got anything here to drink,
Generalf But I'm here now, and m
a-qoing 20 iaE. fap lear mel
Never in all the world, perhaps, were
mans feelings so outraged as wsFs iae
Generals He said he had never heard
Of srch hieh-handed conduct in all his
life as this Eorgln's. And he said there
was no uss In going 10 law-Morgan had
no shadow OF right to remain where he
was-hobody in the wide world would uP-