Mark and company return to consciousness and resume their old vices. Then, on to Carson City.

Lost and alone in a storm, our travelers try some anecdotal techniques for starting a fire, but fail. Then, to sleep perchance to dream.

The Landlady defeats and humiliates a drunken bully with nothing more than a pair of scissors and verbal ability. Our heroes attempt escaping the confinement of the inn only to find themselves lost in a snowstorm.

We never touched our tunnel or our shaft again. Why? Because we judged that we had learned the real secret of success in silver mining—which was, not to mine the silver ourselves by the sweat of our brows and the labor of our hands, but to sell the ledges to the dull slaves of toil and let them do the mining!

Mark and friends wind up stranded in Honey Lake Smith's Inn due to the flooding of the Carson River.

Mark discovers just how hard mining actually is and decides that the money is actually made in buying and selling shares or feet in mines, not working them with picks and shovels. This was originally presented at Fate Gardens on May 3 but the screen capture program crashed after approximately 1/2 hour. It this point I started recording the audio track separate from the screen capture program, which is now set to capture only the video. The audio option is turned off. I found mention of this in various sites on the web but no solution.

Mark arrives in Unionville and takes up prospecting. His preconceived ideas about mining melt away when he is informed that his discovery of gold is mere mica. This does result in some philosophic gold, however, as he remarks that "I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica".

The trials and tribulations of the journey from Carson City to the silver mines, but also the satisfaction from camping out.

The gossip and propaganda that induces Silver Fever in Mark.