reased frontier tariff, he was met with the usual thick-headed
official lack of imagination, with the result that the excess paid was
deducted from his slender salary. With a man of less conscience this
condition would easily have been offset by another wherein other rates,
less arbitrary, would have been adjusted to negotiate the official
deficit. With Orion Clemens such a remedy was not even considered;
yielding, unstable, blown by every wind of influence though he was,
Orion's integrity was a rock.

Governor Nye was among those who presently made this discovery. Old
politician that he was--former police commissioner of New York City--Nye
took care of his own problems in the customary manner. To him, politics
was simply a game--to be played to win. He was a popular, jovial man,
well liked and thought of, but he did not lie awake, as Orion did,
planning economies for the government, or how to make up excess charges
out of his salary. To him Nevada was simply a doorway to the United
States Senate, and in the mean time his brigade required official
recognition and perquisites. The governor found Orion Clemens an
impediment to this policy. Orion could not be brought to a proper
political understanding of "special bills and accounts," and relations
between the secretary of state and the governor were becoming strained.

It was about this time that the man who had been potentate of the
pilot-house of a Mississippi River steamer returned from Humboldt. He
was fond of the governor, but he had still higher regard for the family
integrity. When he had heard Orion's troubled story, he called on
Governor Nye and delivered himself in his own fashion. In his former
employments he had acquired a vocabulary and moral backbone sufficient to
his needs. We may regret that no stenographic report was made of the
interview. It would be priceless now. But it is lost; we only know that
Orion's rectitude was not again assailed, and that curiously enough
Governor Nye apparently conceived a strong admiration and respect for his
brother.

Samuel Clemens, miner, remained but a brief time in Carson City--only
long enough to arrange for a new and more persistent venture. He did not
confess his Humboldt failure to his people; in fact, he had not as yet
confessed it to himself; his avowed purpose was to return to Humboldt
after a brief investigation of the Esmeralda mines. He had been paying
heavy assessments on his holdings there; and, with a know