Year: 1870

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 very steep, and so when the snow
gets to melting off fast in the Spring
and the warm 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 ola mountain taken
off some fine morning and deposited
down in the valley, leaving a vast,
treeless, unsightly scar upon the
mountains front, to keep the circum-
stance fresh in your memory all the
years that you may 60 on living with
in seventy miles of this place,


General BuncOmbe was shipped
out to Nevada in the invoice of Ter
ritorial officers, to be United States
Attorney. He considered himself a
lawyer of parts, and he very much
wanted an opportunity to manifest
it-partly for the pure qualification
of it and partly because his salary
was Territorially meagre (which is a
a strong expression, Now the old
er citizens of a new territory look
upon the rest of the world with
calm, unmaHgnant contempt as long
as it keeps out of the way-when it
gets in the way they snub it. Some
times this latter takes the shape Of a
practical joke.


One morning Dick Sides rode fur
riously up to General Buneomb's
door in Carson City, and rushed in
to his presence without stopping to
tie his horse. He seemed much eX
cited. He told the general that he
wanted him to defend suit for him
and would pay him five-hundred dol
lars if he achieved a victory. And
then, with violent gestures and q
world 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 a successful
thing Of it, and furthermore it was
known that his ranch was situated
Just in the edge of the valley, and
that Tom Morgan owned ranch i'm
mediately above it on the mountain
side. And now the trouble was that
one of those hated dreaded land
slides had come and slid Morgan's
ranch, fences, cabins, cattle, barns
and everything down on top Of has
ranch and exactly covered up every
vestige of his property, to depth OF
about six feet. Morgan was in pos
session 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 the
same ran III it had always stood on,
and would like to see anybody make
him vacate.


"And when ] reminded him, said
Slides, weeping, ''that it was on top
Of my ranch, and that he was tres
passing. he had the internal mean
ness to ask me why didn't l stay on
my ranch and hold possession when
l see him coming! Why didn't I
stay on it, the blathering lunatic-
and, by George, when l heard the
racket and looked up that mill it was
Just like the whole world was rip
ping and a tearing down that noun
tain side-trees going end over end
in the air, rocks as big as a house
Jumping about thousand feet high
and bursting into ten million pieces,
cattle literally turned inside out and
a-coming head-long with their tails
hanging out between their teeth
Oh, splinters and cord-wood, 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 destruc-
ton sot that cussed Morgan on his
gate-post, 3 wondering whyI didn't
stay and hold possession; likely!
Umph! l just took one glimps of that
spectacle, General, and ] lit Out'n
the country in three jumps exactly.


"But what grinds me is that Nor
gan hangs on there and won't move,
of17n that ranch-says its his'n and
he's going to keep it-likes it better
than he did when it was higher up
the hill. Mad Well, I've been SO
mad for two days | couldn't find my
way to town-been wandering around
in the brush in a starving condition
got any thing here to drink, Gen
eral? But I'm here nor, and I'm
ooinO to law You hear me ~