The Secretary had to pay that dollar and a
half. He thought the United States would admire both his economy and his
honesty in getting the work done at half price and not putting a
pretended Indian's signature to the voucher, but the United States did
not see it in that light.
The United States was too much accustomed to employing dollar-and-a-half
thieves in all manner of official capacities to regard his explanation of
the voucher as having any foundation in fact.
But the next time the Indian sawed wood for us I taught him to make a
cross at the bottom of the voucher--it looked like a cross that had been
drunk a year--and then I "witnessed" it and it went through all right.
The United States never said a word. I was sorry I had not made the
voucher for a thousand loads of wood instead of one.
The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic
villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable
pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.
That was a fine collection of sovereigns, that first Nevada legislature.
They levied taxes to the amount of thirty or forty thousand dollars and
ordered expenditures to the extent of about a million.
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