My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty¹ that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer², Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting³ Governor in the Governor’s absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of “Mr. Secretary,” gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing⁴ grandeur⁵. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted⁶ his distinction and his financial splendor⁷, but particularly and especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to travel! I never had been away from home, and that word “travel” had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes⁸ and Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes⁹, and have all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and return home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and the ocean, and “the isthmus” as if it was nothing of any consequence to have seen those marvels¹⁰ face to face.

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