cious, winy atmosphere, its vast colonnades of pines, its measureless
depths of water, so clear that to drift on it was like floating high
aloft in mid-nothingness. They staked out a timber claim and made a
semblance of fencing it and of building a habitation, to comply with the
law; but their chief employment was a complete abandonment to the quiet
luxury of that dim solitude: wandering among the trees, lounging along
the shore, or drifting on that transparent, insubstantial sea. They did
not sleep in their house, he says:

"It never occurred to us, for one thing; and, besides, it was built to
hold the ground, and that was enough. We did not wish to strain it."

They lived by their camp-fire on the borders of the lake, and one day--it
was just at nightfall--it got away from them, fired the forest, and
destroyed their fence and habitation. His picture in 'Roughing It' of
the superb night spectacle, the mighty mountain conflagration reflected
in the waters of the lake, is splendidly vivid. The reader may wish to
compare it with this extract from a letter written to Pamela at the time.

The level ranks of flame were relieved at intervals by the standard-
bearers, as we called the tall, dead trees, wrapped in fire, and
waving their blazing banners a hundred feet in the air. Then we
could turn from the scene to the lake, and see every branch and leaf
and cataract of flame upon its banks perfectly reflected, as in a
gleaming, fiery mirror. The mighty roaring of the conflagration,
together with our solitary and somewhat unsafe position (for there
was no one within six miles of us), rendered the scene very
impressive. Occasionally one of us would remove his pipe from his
mouth and say, "Superb, magnificent!--beautifull--but--by the Lord
God Almighty, if we attempt to sleep in this little patch to-night,
we'll never live till morning!"

This is good writing too, but it lacks the fancy and the choice of
phrasing which would develop later. The fire ended their first excursion
to Tahoe, but they made others and located other claims--claims in which
the "folks at home," Mr. Moffett, James Lampton, and others, were
included. It was the same James Lampton who would one day serve as a
model for Colonel Sellers. Evidently Samuel Clemens had a good opinion
of his business capacity in that earlier day, for he writes:

This is just the country for cousin Jim to live in. I don't believ