FOREST AND STREAM 
367 
fered better prospects than the place in w'hich 
they happened to be temporarily located. Nevada 
was not entitled. to admission into the Union 
because its population was never more than half 
the number required; but it came in during the 
war between the states, and such a trifle as a 
shortage of inhabitants was not allowed to be a 
serious obstacle when more northern Senators 
were wanted. Even as late as 1890, the United 
States census shows the population for that year 
to have been under forty thousand, exclusive 
of Indians. 
The only settlements at the time of which 1 
am writing were in the extreme western por¬ 
tion of the state, close under the Sierra Nevada 
Mountains, except the Reese River mining dis¬ 
trict, near the central part. Those of my read¬ 
ers who have passed through Nevada by either 
of the two lines of railway which now cross 
the state, one through the northern and the 
other through the southern portion, may wonder 
what there can be in the dreary landscape w'hich 
greeted their eyes from the car windows hour 
after hour, to arouse any kind of sentimental 
attachment; a landscape more suggestive of 
hunger and thirst than anything else. They must 
bear in mind that a railway is constructed over 
the easiest route that reasonable directness will 
allow, and therefore the most attractive parts 
are only seen from a distance. 
Wherever there is any considerable piece of 
permanent pasture, is now the headquarters of 
a cattle or sheep range, and these changes are 
of a kind to fill the lover of the wilderness and 
the fronties with melancholy. The Nevada which 
I then knew, and that I knew still better at a 
somewhat later date than that of which I am 
now writing, was attractive in its way, as most 
wild regions are to those who have lived long 
therein. A land of range upon range of moun¬ 
tains running mostly north and south, but some 
times at right angles with the general trend and 
ever the flat sage-covered plains between. 
In places there are low foot hills where the 
sage merges into hardwood underbrush and 
stunted cedars before the region of grass- 
covered parks and fine timber is reached. On 
some of the mountains the snow lingers in shel¬ 
tered spots until far into the summer, and even 
until the winter comes again. 
The most beautiful springs of ice water I have 
ever seen have been in narrow canyons among 
the mountains of Nevada. 
Little brooks only a few feet wide come tumb¬ 
ling down the ravine and vanish in the first half 
mile of their valley existence. First, there is a 
marsh of a few acres overgrown with tule or 
even wild cane as 1 saw in one instance and then 
the tiny brook disappears in the thirsty desert. 
There were a few antelope and deer, and plenty 
of jack rabbits and sage fowl; also coyotes and 
wolves in numbers corresponding to the food 
supply. Along the bases of the higher ranges 
such little brooks were not infrequent, and where 
they entered the valley there was grass for the 
horses, game for their riders, and pure water 
for both; so these were welcome camping places. 
Now every little stream which can be dammed 
so as to get a head of water for irrigating pur¬ 
poses, has been seized upon, and a few acres 01 
alfalfa, a cattle corral of poles cut in the neigh¬ 
boring mountains and close by some sort of mis¬ 
erable hovel of adobe and logs, proclaims the 
march of improvement. 
The water is held by the man who first appro¬ 
priated it, and his cattle may range over twenty 
to fifty square miles of mountain and plain, ac¬ 
cording to the proximity of the next station. 
The worst of it is that the names of the pres¬ 
ent cattle owners are three-fourths of them Ital¬ 
ians. “Raphael Amado Bar A brand,” “Antonio 
Carrazo XR brand,” etc., etc., are samples of the 
advertisements in the nearest newspapers. Oc¬ 
casionally some name of British or Germanic 
origin appears, but the majority are from sunny 
Italy. Somehow or other one feels that the 
Raphaels and Antonios have stepped out of their 
proper sphere when they engage in such an oc¬ 
cupation as cattle raising. But I have digressed 
enough, and will again take up the details of my 
trip. We were now entering a region where the 
Indians had formerly been very troublesome 
though fortunately peaceable enough just at this 
time. 
It was here the incident occurred as related 
in Mark Twain’s “Roughing It.” A stage coach 
was attacked by mounted Indians and the driver 
shot dead, when a passenger sitting by his side 
gathered up the reins and successfully guided 
the plunging horses to safety in the station, for¬ 
tunately close at hand. 
These Indians were Gosi-Utes, commonly call¬ 
ed by the whites “Goshoots,” a branch of the 
great Ute family, of whom there are, or were, 
a number of subdivisions. There being no troops 
Crossing the River of Doubt. 
