a natural end, and Mark Twain arranged to do a daily San Francisco letter
for his old paper, the Enterprise. The Enterprise letters stirred up
trouble. They criticized the police of San Francisco so severely that
the officials found means of making the writer's life there difficult and
comfortless. With Jim Gillis, brother of a printer of whom he was fond,
and who had been the indirect cause of his troubles, he went up into
Calaveras County, to a cabin on jackass Hill. Jim Gillis, a lovable,
picturesque character (the Truthful James of Bret Harte), owned mining
claims. Mark Twain decided to spend his vacation in pocket-mining, and
soon added that science to his store of knowledge. It was a halcyon,
happy three months that he lingered there, but did not make his fortune;
he only laid the corner-stone.

They tried their fortune at Angel's Camp, a place well known to readers
of Bret Harte. But it rained pretty steadily, and they put in most of
their time huddled around the single stove of the dingy hotel of Angel's,
telling yarns. Among the stories was one told by a dreary narrator named
Ben Coon. It was about a frog that had been trained to jump, but failed
to win a wager because the owner of a rival frog had surreptitiously
loaded him with shot. The story had been circulated among the camps, but
Mark Twain had never heard it until then. The tale and the tiresome
fashion of its telling amused him. He made notes to remember it.

Their stay in Angel's Camp came presently to an end. One day, when the
mining partners were following the specks of gold that led to a pocket
somewhere up the hill, a chill, dreary rain set in. Jim, as usual was
washing, and Clemens was carrying water. The "color" became better and
better as they ascended, and Gillis, possessed with the mining passion,
would have gone on, regardless of the rain. Clemens, however, protested,
and declared that each pail of water was his last. Finally he said, in