The next morning the same paper had this — nothing
more : —

"Significant. — Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively
silent about the Cochin China perjury."

{Mem. — During the rest of the campaign this paper
never referred to me in any other way than as **the
infamous perjurer Twain."]



812 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES

Next came the Gazette, with this : —

"Wanted to Know. — Will the new Candida te for Governor deigo
to explain to certain of his fellow-citizens (who are suffering to
vote for him I) the little circumstance of his cabin-mates in Mon-
tana losing small valuables from time to time, until at last, these
things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or in
his*trunk' (newspaper he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled to
give him a friendly admonition for his own good, and so tarred
and feathered him, and rode him on a rail, and then advised him
to leave a permanent vacuum in the plEice he usually occupied in
the camp. Will he do this?"

Could anything be more deliberately malicious
than that ? For I "never was in Montana in mv life.
[After this, this journal customarily spoke of me
as "Twain, the Montana Thief."]

I got to picking up papers apprehensively— much
as one would lift a desired blanket which he had some
idea might have a rattlesnake under it. One day
this met my eye : —

"The Lie Nailed I— By the sworn affidavits of Michael OTlan-
agan, Esq., of the Five Points, and Mr. Snub Rafferty and Mr.
