IT WAS THURSDAY November 27th, Thanksgiving Day.

The legislature was not meeting and Mrs. Murphy had warned me that the citizens of Carson City would be firing revolvers & anvils in celebration all day. Animals do not like loud bangs & neither do I, so I told her not to make me breakfast but just to leave a couple of cold taters.

At daybreak I set out on Cheeya for a long ride.

We went north towards Steamboat Springs, where there is a hotel beside some hot springs that puff like a riverboat. The weather was charming, as my friend A.J. Marsh says, and the west side of Washoe Lake was real pretty. We passed some nice ranches with cattle and horses both. I had a cup of coffee & a biscuit with sorghum syrup at the Hot Springs Hotel, and when I came out I gave Cheeya an apple. Then we headed back around the east side of the lake.

I got back about 4 o’clock, just in time for a Thanksgiving feast prepared by Mrs. Murphy for her Brigade. It consisted of roast turkey stuffed with oysters & mashed potatoes & gravy. It was about the best meal I ever had, even though I ate it alone in my room on a tray.

Mrs. Murphy served that big meal early because neither she nor the Brigade would be around later that evening. They were all going to the Sanitary Ball, which was to be held in the legislative chambers on the upper floor of the Great Basin Hotel.

I was sitting on my bed & studying a copy of Godey’s Lady’s Book so I could figure out the difference between Solferino & Magenta and also between chenille & camail. I reckoned I could put some of the details in my report to Miss Opal Blossom to make it seem real.

I had just lit a coal-oil lamp when I heard a tapping at the window.

It was Miss Carrie Pixley.

“Today is Thanksgiving,” I said. “The legislature did not meet today, so I have not seen Mr. Sam Clemens.”

“I have something for you,” she said. “A telegram.”

It was from Ping. It said: WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT CORPORATION BILL?

I tore a page from my notebook and wrote my reply: It means Do-Not-Let-the-Frisco-Fat-Cats-Get-Their-Paws-on-Our-Silver!

Carrie took my piece of paper, but she did not leave. “I will take this to E.B. directly, but first I have a favor to ask you. You know that Sanitary Ball they are holding tonight? I am the only one in Nevada Territory not going.”

“I ain’t going neither,” I said.

“Oh, P.K.,” she said, “you have to go! I know my Beloved will be there and I have to know who he dances with. That Louise Tufly is not much older than I, but her ma lets her wear her dresses long and her hair up. Sam has been casting soft glances her way. I am sure of it.”

I said, “I almost got throwed in jail the last time I spied for you. If I hadn’t left the legislative curtain draped over the back stairs to impede my pursuers, they would have caught me for sure.”

“Go as a blind widow lady.”

“Never again.”

“Go in another disguise.”

“All my other disguises are children, and kids ain’t allowed.”

She said, “I have sometimes seen a tall ladder on the ground by the side of the Great Basin Hotel.”

“That ladder is always there,” I admitted. “But I do not think it is tall enough.”

“If I hold it, will you at least try?”

That was how I came to be on a ladder in my Night Shadow Disguise, looking through a side window of the Great Basin Hotel. It was one of those ladders that is wider at the bottom and gets narrower at the top. The ladder was tall—about 14 ft—but not quite as tall as I would have liked. The bottom of the side window was even higher, about 18 ft. As I am only just 5 ft tall, I had to stand on the narrowest & highest rung just to peep in.

The big Chamber of the Second House looked a lot like it had for Miss Curry’s wedding the week before, only more patriotic. There were crepe garlands in red, white and blue & a picture of President Lincoln and a table laden with food for the midnight feast. Four men in smart clothes with fiddles were playing a waltz & some couples were dancing. I knew there was another band of musicians in the smaller Chamber of the First House, but it had no side windows for me to peep through.

Suddenly, the ladder gave a little wobble and I gripped the stone windowsill. I felt a jab of terror & all my blood sank to my toes. I cursed in language unfit for publication.

I glanced down at Miss Carrie Pixley who was supposed to be holding the base of the ladder. It looked an awful long way down. More than 18 feet.

“Hold it steady!” I hissed.

Carrie was also in disguise. She was wearing her pa’s dark oilcloth duster & she had piled her long curly hair into my stovepipe hat so nobody would tell she was a girl.

“Sorry!” she whispered up to me.

There were four street torches out in front of the building. The bright light shining on the corner of the building created a useful shadow for us to hide in. Carriages & couples were still arriving.

“What can you see?” asked Carrie in a loud whisper. “Is my Beloved there?”

I peeped back over the sill into the bright & cheerful music-filled room.

“Yes,” I hissed down to her. “He is with his friend Clement T. Rice. They are standing by the food table.”

“He ain’t dancing?”

“Nope. They are both eating. Cake, I think.”

“Do you see Louise Tufly?”

I did not answer at first, for Violetta De Baskerville had swirled into view. She was dancing with a tall, bearded man I had seen in the gallery sometimes. Violetta was wearing a shiny purple gown with ostrich feathers and a low-cut neck.

Carrie’s whisper came from below, “Is Louise there?”

I tore my gaze from Violetta and scanned the ballroom.

Carrie had described Louise Tufly to me earlier that day but I could not identify her.

“Can’t be sure,” I said. “What color is her gown?”

“Land sakes! I don’t know! Why don’t you come down and I will go up? I will describe things.”

“Are you sure?” I said. “This is a lofty ladder.”

“I am sure. I want to see my Beloved.”

The first few steps back down were the trickiest because all my blood was in my toes and I only had the chilly sandstone wall to hang on to, but I finally gripped the top rung with my hands and from there it was easy. Carrie mounted confidently and as she is taller than me she did not have to go to the very top rung. She looked strange in her long coat and black stovepipe hat up on that ladder.

“There he is!” she cried. “My handsome husband-to-be . . . And don’t the room look pretty with all the crepe and rosettes? Oh, look! Lucy is wearing strawberry foulard and Sarah is all in lemon taffeta and Rose’s silk gown is peach.”

“It sounds like a fruit salad,” I said.

“I see Louise!” cried Carrie. “She is wearing a sagebrush-colored dress. Oh dear! That color don’t suit her at all.”

“Can you see Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville?” I asked. “Is she still dancing with that tall man?”

“Yes,” said Carrie. “She is wearing Magenta taffeta with cream flounces of gauze de Chambray. Oh, I do hope I get a figure like hers when I am older.”

I was making notes in my Detective Notebook. I thought it would make my report to Opal more authentic if I described what the ladies were wearing.

“Land sakes!” cried Carrie. “There is Mr. Hannah with his new wife. She only got her divorce this morning and they married this afternoon. It is a perfect scandal!”

I nodded. Loverboy Hannah had proposed the bill that made divorce legal in Nevada Territory. (Divorce! Legal! My foster ma and pa would be spinning in their graves.)

“Land sakes!” cried Carrie again. “Mrs. Ormsby is wearing salmon pink!”

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked, not looking up from my notes.

“She should be wearing pewter or purple for half mourning. She has only been a widow two years. Still, it is lovely.”

From the front of the building came a strange crunching thud.

“Land sakes!” cried Carrie a third time. “I think Violetta just pushed that man out of the window!”