desert.

Those were lively times. In the midst of one of his letters home Mark
Twain interrupts himself to say: "I have just heard five pistol-shots
down the street--as such things are in my line, I will go and see about
it," and in a postscript added a few hours later:

5 A.M. The pistol-shot did its work well. One man, a Jackson
County Missourian, shot two of my friends (police officers) through
the heart--both died within three minutes. The murderer's name is
John Campbell.

"Mark and I had our hands full," says De Quille, "and no grass grew
under our feet." In answer to some stray criticism of their policy, they
printed a sort of editorial manifesto:

Our duty is to keep the universe thoroughly posted concerning
murders and street fights, and balls, and theaters, and pack-trains,
and churches, and lectures, and school-houses, and city military
affairs, and highway robberies, and Bible societies, and hay-wagons,
and the thousand other things which it is in the province of local
reporters to keep track of and magnify into undue importance for the
instruction of the readers of a great daily newspaper.

It is easy to recognize Mark Twain's hand in that compendium of labor,
which, in spite of its amusing apposition, was literally true, and so
intended, probably with no special thought of humor in its construction.
It may be said, as well here as anywhere, that it was not Mark Twain's
habit to strive for humor. He saw facts at curious angles and phrased
them accordingly. In Virginia City he mingled with the turmoil of the
Comstock and set down what he saw and thought, in his native speech. The
Comstock, ready to laugh, found delight in his expression and discovered
a vast humor in his most earnest statements.

On the other hand, there were times when the humor was intended and
missed its purpose. We have already recalled the instance of the
"Petrified Man" hoax, which was taken seriously; but the "Empire City
Massacre" burlesque found an acceptance that even its author considered
serious for a time. It is remembered to-day in Virginia City as the
chief incident of Mark Twain's Comstock career.

This literary bomb really had two objects, one of which was to punish
the San Francisco Bulletin for its persistent attacks on Washoe
interests; the other, though this was merely incidental, to direct an
unpleasant attention to a certain Carson saloon, the Magnolia, which was
supp