In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow—­climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long.  The captain said she was a “bully” boat, and all she wanted was more “shear” and a bigger wheel.  I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to say so.

CHAPTER II.

The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dollars apiece for tickets per overland coach to Carson City, Nevada.

The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty breakfast, and hurried to the starting-place.  Then an inconvenience presented itself which we had not properly appreciated before, namely, that one cannot make a heavy traveling trunk stand for twenty-five pounds of baggage —­because it weighs a good deal more.  But that was all we could take —­twenty-five pounds each.  So we had to snatch our trunks open, and make a selection in a good deal of a hurry.  We put our lawful twenty-five pounds apiece all in one valise, and shipped the trunks back to St. Louis again.  It was a sad parting, for now we had no swallow-tail coats and white kid gloves to wear at Pawnee receptions in the Rocky Mountains, and no stove-pipe hats nor patent-leather boots, nor anything else necessary to make life calm and peaceful.  We were reduced to a war-footing.  Each of us put on a rough, heavy suit of clothing, woolen army shirt and “stogy” boots included; and into the valise we crowded a few white shirts, some under-clothing and such things.  My brother, the Secretary, took along about four pounds of United States statutes and six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary; for we did not know—­poor innocents—­that such things could be bought in San Francisco on one day and received in Carson City the next.  I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homoeopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult.  But I thought it was grand.  It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon.  It only had one fault—­you could not hit anything with it.  One of our “conductors” practiced awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and behaved herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving about, and he got to shooting at other things, she came to grief.  The Secretary had a small-sized Colt’s revolver strapped around him for protection against the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it uncapped.  Mr. George Bemis was dismally formidable.  George Bemis was our fellow-traveler.