Mr. Monk himself is still in the employ of the California Stage
Company, and is rather fond of relating a story that has made him
famous all over the Pacific coast. But he says he yields to no man
in his admiration for Horace Greeley.

4.8. TO REESE RIVER.

I leave Virginia for Great Salt Lake City, via the Reese River
Silver Diggings.

There are eight passengers of us inside the coach--which, by the
way, isn't a coach, but a Concord covered mud wagon.

Among the passengers is a genial man of the name of Ryder, who has
achieved a widespread reputation as a strangler of unpleasant bears
in the mountain fastnesses of California, and who is now an eminent
Reese River miner.

We ride night and day, passing through the land of the Piute
Indians. Reports reach us that fifteen hundred of these savages
are on the Rampage, under the command of a red usurper named
Buffalo Jim, who seems to be a sort of Jeff Davis, inasmuch as he
and his followers have seceded from the regular Piut organization.
The seceding savages have announced that they shall kill and scalp
all pale-faces [which makes our face pale, I reckon] found loose in
that section. We find the guard doubled at all the stations where
we change horses, and our passengers nervously examine their
pistols and readjust the long glittering knives in their belts. I
feel in my pockets to see if the key which unlocks the carpet-bag
containing my revolvers is all right--for I had rather brilliantly