tary
camp-followers of the Governor, who had joined his retinue by their own
election at New York and San Francisco and came along, feeling that in
the scuffle for little territorial crumbs and offices they could not make
their condition more precarious than it was, and might reasonably expect
to make it better. They were popularly known as the "Irish Brigade,"
though there were only four or five Irishmen among all the Governor's
retainers.

His good-natured Excellency was much annoyed at the gossip his henchmen
created--especially when there arose a rumor that they were paid
assassins of his, brought along to quietly reduce the democratic vote
when desirable!

Mrs. O'Flannigan was boarding and lodging them at ten dollars a week
apiece, and they were cheerfully giving their notes for it. They were
perfectly satisfied, but Bridget presently found that notes that could
not be discounted were but a feeble constitution for a Carson
boarding-house. So she began to harry the Governor to find employment
for the "Brigade." Her importunities and theirs together drove him to a
gentle desperation at last, and he finally summoned the Brigade to the
presence. Then, said he:

"Gentlemen, I have planned a lucrative and useful service for you
--a service which will provide you with recreation amid noble landscapes,
and afford you never ceasing opportunities for enriching your minds by
observation and study. I want you to survey a railroad from Carson City
westward to a certain point! When the legislature meets I will have the
necessary bill passed and the remuneration arranged."

"What, a railroad over the Sierra Nevada Mountains?"

"Well, then, survey it eastward to a certain point!"

He converted them into surveyors, chain-bearers and so on, and turned
them loose in the desert. It was "recreation" with a vengeance!
Recreation on foot, lugging chains through sand and sage-brush, under a
sultry sun and among cattle bones, cayotes and tarantulas.

"Romantic adventure" could go no further. They surveyed very slowly,
very deliberately, very carefully. They returned every night during the
first week, dusty, footsore, tired, and hungry, but very jolly. They
brought in great store of prodigious hairy spiders--tarantulas--and
imprisoned them in covered tumblers up stairs in the "ranch." After the
first week, they had to camp on the field, for they were getting well
eastward. They made a good many inquiries as to the locati