to a stop-over, but you must be ready to hop on when the train starts. I
improved the time by cultivating the acquaintance of the beautiful and
picturesque outcasts known as the Piute Indians. They are a quiet,
reserved set of people, who, by saying nothing, sometimes obtain a
reputation for deep thought. I always envy anybody who can do that. Such
men make good presidential candidates. Candidates, I say, mind you. The
time has come in this country when it is hard to unite good
qualifications as a candidate with the necessary qualities for a
successful official.

The Piute, in March or April, does not go down cellar and bring up his
gladiolus, or remove the banking from the side of his villa. He does not
mulch the asparagus bed, or prune the pie-plant, or rake the front yard,
or salt the hens. He does not even wipe his heartbroken and neglected
nose. He makes no especial change in his great life-work because spring
has come. He still looks serious, and like a man who is laboring under
the impression that he is about to become the parent of a thought. These
children of the Piute brave never mature. They do not take their places
in the histories or the school readers of our common country. The Piute
wears a bright red lap-robe over his person, and generally a stiff
Quaker hat, with a leather band. His hair is very thick, black and
coarse, and is mostly cut off square in the neck, by means of an adz, I
judge, or possibly it is eaten off by moths. The Piute is never bald
during life. After he is dead he becomes bald and beloved.

Johnson Sides is a well-known Piute who had the pleasure of meeting me
at Reno. He said he was a great admirer of mine and had all my writings
in a scrap-book at home. He also said that he wished I would come and
lecture for his tribe. I afterward learned that he was an earnest and
hopeful liar from Truckee. He had no scrap-book at all. Also no home.

Mr. Sides at one time became quite civilized, distinguishing himself
from his tribe by reading the Bible and imprisoning the lower drapery of
his linen garment in the narrow confines of a pair of cavalry trousers,
instead of giving it to the irresponsible breeze, as other Piutes did.
He then established a hotel up the valley in the Sierras, and decided to
lead a life of industry. He built a hostelry called the
Shack-de-Poker-Huntus, and advertised in the _Carson Appeal_, a paper
which even the editor, Sam Davis, says fills him with wonder and
amazem