was
only one complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and we had
found it.

Also, there is that lofty presentation of South Pass, and a picture of
the alkali desert, so parching, so withering in its choking realism, that
it makes the throat ache and the tongue dry to read it. Just a bit of
the desert in passing:

The sun beats down with a dead, blistering, relentless malignity;
the perspiration is welling from every pore in man and beast, but
scarcely a sign of it finds its way to the surface--it is absorbed
before it gets there; there is not the faintest breath of air
stirring; there is not a merciful shred of cloud in all the
brilliant firmament; there is not a living creature visible in any
direction whither one searches the blank level that stretches its
monotonous miles on every hand; there is not a sound, not a sigh,
not a whisper, not a buzz, or a whir of wings, or distant pipe of
bird; not even a sob from the lost souls that doubtless people that
dead air.

As for the humor of the book, it has been chiefly famous for that. "Buck
Fanshaw's Funeral" has become a classic, and the purchase of the "Mexican
Plug." But it is to no purpose to review the book here in detail. We
have already reviewed the life and environment out of which it grew.

Without doubt the story would have contained more of the poetic and
contemplative, in which he was always at his best, if the subject itself,
as in the Innocents, had lent itself oftener to this form of writing. It
was the lack of that halo perhaps which caused the new book never quite
to rank with its great forerunner in public favor. There could hardly be
any other reason. It presented a fresher theme; it abounded in humor;
technically, it was better written; seemingly it had all the elements of
popularity and of permanence. It did, in fact, possess these qualities,
but its sales, except during the earlier months of its canvass, never
quite equaled those of The Innocents Abroad.

'Roughing It' was accepted by the public for just what it was and is, a
great picture of the Overland Pioneer days--a marvelous picture of
frontier aspects at a time when the frontier itself, even with its
hardships and its tragedies, was little more than a vast primal joke;
when all frontiersmen were obliged to be laughing philosophers in order
to survive the stress of its warfares.

A word here about this Western humor: It is a distin