ession as is here set
down:

"Mark's lecture was given in Piper's Opera House, October 30, 1866. The
Virginia City people had heard many famous lectures before, but they
were mere sideshows compared with Mark's. It could have been run to
crowded houses for a week. We begged him to give the common people a
chance; but he refused to repeat himself. He was going down to Carson,
and was coming back to talk in Gold Hill about a week later, and his
agent, Denis McCarthy, and I laid a plan to have him robbed on the
Divide between Gold Hill and Virginia, after the Gold Hill lecture was
over and he and Denis would be coming home with the money. The Divide
was a good lonely place, and was famous for its hold-ups. We got City
Marshal George Birdsall into it with us, and took in Leslie Blackburn,
Pat Holland, Jimmy Eddington, and one or two more of Sam's old friends.
We all loved him, and would have fought for him in a moment. That's the
kind of friends Mark had in Nevada. If he had any enemies I never heard
of them.

"We didn't take in Dan de Quille, or Joe here, because Sam was Joe's
guest, and we were afraid he would tell him. We didn't take in Dan
because we wanted him to write it up as a genuine robbery and make a big
sensation. That would pack the opera-house at two dollars a seat to hear
Mark tell the story.

"Well, everything went off pretty well. About the time Mark was
finishing his lecture in Gold Hill the robbers all went up on the Divide
to wait, but Mark's audience gave him a kind of reception after his
lecture, and we nearly froze to death up there before he came along.
By and by I went back to see what was the matter. Sam and Denis were
coming, and carrying a carpet-sack about half full of silver between
them. I shadowed them and blew a policeman's whistle as a signal to the
boys when the lecturers were within about a hundred yards of the place.
I heard Sam say to Denis:

"'I'm glad they've got a policeman on the Divide. They never had one in
my day.'

"Just about that time the boys, all with black masks on and silver
dollars at the sides of their tongues to disguise their voices, stepped
out and stuck six-shooters at Sam and Denis and told them to put up
their hands. The robbers called each other 'Beauregard' and 'Stonewall
Jackson.' Of course Denis's hands went up, and Mark's, too, though Mark
wasn't a bit scared or excited. He talked to the robbers in his regular
fashion. He said:

"'Don't flourish those