l, with chilblains on my feet and liniment on
my other lineaments, I burst forth one bright morning into the realm of
eternal summer. The birds sang in my frozen bosom. I shed the gunnysack
wraps from my tender feet even as a butterfly or a tramp bursts his hull
in the spring time, and I laughed two or three coarse, outdoor laughs,
which shook the balmy branches of the tall pomegranate trees and
twittered in the dense foliage of the magnolia.

The railroad was very kind to me at first. That was when I was buying my
ticket. Later on it became more harsh and even reproached me at times.
Conductors woke me up two or three times in the night to gaze fondly on
my ticket and look as if they were sorry they ever parted with it. On
the Central Pacific passengers are not permitted to give their tickets
to the porter on retiring. You must wake up and converse with the
conductor at all hours of the night, and hold a lantern for him while he
slowly spells out the hard words on your ticket. I did not like this,
and several times I murmured in a querulous tone to the conductor. But
he did not mind it. He went on doing the behests of his employer, and in
that way endearing himself to the great adversary of souls.

I said to an official of the road: "Do you not think this is the worst
managed road in the United States--always excepting the Western North
Carolina Railroad, which is an incorporated insult to humanity?"

"Well," he replied, "that depends, of course, on the standpoint from
which you view it. If we were trying to divert travel to the Southern
Pacific, also the rolling stock, the good-will, the culverts, the
dividends, the frogs, the snowsheds, the right of way and the new-laid
train figs, everything except the first, second and third mortgages,
which would naturally revert to the government, would you not think we
were managing the business with a steady hand and a watchful eye?"

I said I certainly should. I then wrung his hand softly and stole away,
as he also began to do the same thing.

[Illustration: _I improved the time by cultivating the acquaintance of
the beautiful and picturesque outcasts known as the Piute Indians_ (Page
57)]

At Reno we had a day or two in which to observe the city from the car
platform, while waiting for the blockade to be raised. We could not go
away from the train further than five hundred feet, for it might start
at any moment. That is one beauty about a snow blockade. It entitles you