The Paiute Indian or Pyramid Lake War began in May of 1860 because of
events that took place at Honey Lake Smith's Station, then referred to
as Williams Station.  Twain devotes two chapters of material to later
events at this station, he was stranded there by flooding.  Twain
originally traveled through this area in 1861 on his way to Carson City.
He expresses a great deal of racist bias towards the Indians and I had
rather hoped that it was because he might have been unaware of the
initial causes of the Paiute War.  This appears to be not the case.  He
was both aware of the causes and actually found humor in them.

"Keep your eye on the old man, Billy, and don't let him get too
enthusiastic, because if he does, he will begin to feel young again,
like he did when he fell in the river at Honey-Lake's; and being a
lecherous old cuss anyhow, he might ravish one of those Pi-Utes and
bring on an Indian war, you know. So, just keep an eye on him."
http://www.marktwainproject.org/xtf/view?docId=letters/UCCL00037.xml;style=letter;brand=mtp

I found this at http://www.forgottennevada.org/sites/williams.html

So often our heroes have feet of clay.