Orion and I are not financiers.  Therefore, you must persuade Uncle Jim to come out here and help us in that line.  I have written to him twice to come.  I wrote him today.  In both letters I told him not to let you or Ma know that we dealt in such romantic nonsense as “brilliant prospects,” because I always did hate for anyone to know what my plans or hopes or prospects were—­for, if I kept people in ignorance in these matters, no one could be disappointed but myself, if they were not realized.  You know I never told you that I went on the river under a promise to pay Bixby $500, until I had paid the money and cleared my skirts of the possibility of having my judgment criticised.  I would not say anything about our prospects now, if we were nearer home.  But I suppose at this distance you are more anxious than you would be if you saw us every month-and therefore it is hardly fair to keep you in the dark.  However, keep these matters to yourselves, and then if we fail, we’ll keep the laugh in the family.

What we want now is something that will commence paying immediately.  We have got a chance to get into a claim where they say a tunnel has been run 150 feet, and the ledge struck.  I got a horse yesterday, and went out with the Attorney-General and the claim-owner—­and we tried to go to the claim by a new route, and got lost in the mountains—­sunset overtook us before we found the claim—­my horse got too lame to carry me, and I got down and drove him ahead of me till within four miles of town—­then we sent Rice on ahead.  Bunker, (whose horse was in good condition,) undertook, to lead mine, and I followed after him.  Darkness shut him out from my view in less than a minute, and within the next minute I lost the road and got to wandering in the sage brush.  I would find the road occasionally and then lose it again in a minute or so.  I got to Carson about nine o’clock, at night, but not by the road I traveled when I left it.  The General says my horse did very well for awhile, but soon refused to lead.  Then he dismounted, and had a jolly time driving both horses ahead of him and chasing them here and there through the sage brush (it does my soul good when I think of it) until he got to town, when both animals deserted him, and he cursed them handsomely and came home alone.  Of course the horses went to their stables.

Tell Sammy I will lay a claim for him, and he must come out and attend to it.  He must get rid of that propensity for tumbling down, though, for when we get fairly started here, I don’t think we shall have time to pick up those who fall.....

That is Stoughter’s house, I expect, that Cousin Jim has moved into.  This is just the country for Cousin Jim to live in.  I don’t believe it would take him six months to make $100,000 here, if he had 3,000 dollars to commence with.  I suppose he can’t leave his family though.

Tell Mrs. Benson I never intend to be a lawyer.  I have been a slave several times in my life, but I’ll never be one again.  I always intend to be so situated (unless I marry,) that I can “pull up stakes” and clear out whenever I feel like it.