The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1870-05-17
The Facts in the Great Landslide
Case.
by MARK TWAIN.

fast IN the spring and the warm surface
earth begins to mosten and soften, the
disastrous landslides commence. You do
not know what landslide Is unless you
have lived in that country and seen the
whole side Of mountain taken off some
fine morning and deposited down in the
valley, leaving n vast, treeless, unsightly
scar upon the mountains front to keep
the circumstance fresh in your memory
all the years that you may go on living
within seventy miles of that place.
General Buncombe was shipped out to
Nevada in the invoice of Territorial Off
GERS, to be United States Attorney He
considered himself lawyer of parts, and
he very much wanted an opportunity to
manifest it-partly for the pure gratifca-
tion of it, and partly because his salary
was Territorially meagre (Which is a
strong expression). Now the older citi-
zens of new territory look upon the rest
of the world with calm, unmalignant
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 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 Gen.
eral that he wanted him to defend suit
for him, and would pay him five hundred
dollars if he achieved victory. And
then, with violent gestures and word of
profanity, he poured out his griefs He
said it was pretty well known that for
some years he had been farming Tor
ranching as the more customary term is)
in Washoe District, and making sue
cessful thing of it, and furthermore it was
known that his rancho was situated just in
the edge of the valley, and that Tom
Morgan owned la ranch Immediately above
it on the mountain side. And now the
trouble was that one of those hated and
dreaded landslides had come and slid
Morgan's ranch, fences, cattle, barns and
everything down on the top Of his ranch,
and exactly covered up every single ves-
tige 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 inter-
fering with nybody elsc's-and said cabin
was standing on the same dirt and same
ranch it had always stood on, and would
like to see anybody make him vacate.
And when reminded him." said
Sides, weeping, " that it was on top ofmy
raLche and that he was tresspassing,he had
the internal meanness to ask me why
didn't stay on my ranch and hold posses
sion when see him coming! Why didn't
stay on it, the blathering lunatic-and
by George, when heard that racket and
looked up to the hill it was like the whole
world WAS Il tipping and toor,ns down
that mountain side-trees going end over
end in the air, rocks as big as house
jumping about a thousand feet high and
bursting into ten millions of pieces, cattle
literally turned inside-out and a-coming
head on with their tails hanging out be-
hind their teeth-Oh, splinters, and cord
wood, and thunder and ghtning, and hail
and snow, odds and ends of hay stacks
and things, and dust-Oh, dust amt no
name for tit was just clouds, solid
clouds of dust and in the midst of all
that wreck and destruction sot that cussed
Morgan on his gate-post, a-wondcrng
why did not stay and hold possession ;
likely l took just one glimpse of that
spectacle, General, and | lit out'n the
country in three jumps exactly.
g" But what grinds me is that Morgan
hangs on there and won't move off'n that
ranch-says it's his'n and he's going to
keep it-likes it better'n he did when it
was higher up the hill. Mad Well,
I've been so mad for two days past that
couldn't find my way to town-been
wandering around in starving condition
got anything here to drink, General ?
But I'm here now, and I'm a-going to
law. You hear me !"
Never in all the world, perhaps were a
mans feelings so outraged as we've the
Generals. He said he had never heard
of such high-handed conduct in all his
life as this Morgan's. And he said there
was no use in going to law-Morgan had
no shadow of right to remain where he
was, nobody in the wide world would up
hold him in it, and no lawyer would take
his case and no Judge would listen to it,
Sides said that right there was where he
was mistaken-everybody ia the town
sustained Morgan; Hal Brayton, very
smart lawyer, had taken his case the
courts being in vacation, it was to be
tried before a referee, and ex-Governor
Roop had already been appointed to that
office, and would open his court in the
largest paror in the Ormsby House at
o'clock that afternoon.
The innocent General was amazed. lie
said he had suspected before that the
people Of that Territory were fools, and
NOW he knew it. But he said rest easy
rest easy and collect the witnesses, fol
the victory was just as certain as if the
combat was already over. Sides wiped
away his tears and left,
At two in the afternoon Referee Roop's
court opened, and that remorseless old
joker appeared, throned among his sher-
ifs, his witnesses and "packed" jury
and wearing upon his face a fraudulent
solemnity so awe-inspiring that some Of
his fellow-conspirators had misgivings that
maybe he had not comprehended, after
all, that this was merely joke. An un
earthly stiffness prevailed, for at the
slightest noise the judge uttered sternly
the command
: Order in the court
And the sherffs promptly echoed it
Presently the General elbowed his way
through the crowd Of spectators, with his
arm full of law-books, and on his ear,
fell an order from the judge which was
the first respectful recognition of his high
official dignity that had ever saluted them
and it saturated his whole system with
pleasure.