There was more to it than the events at Williams' Station, and Honey Lake Smith was not yet station keeper in the Lahontan Valley. His station was on higher ground than Williams', which site is now on the bed of Lake Lahontan reservoir. 
Two of Sam Clemens' fellow boarder-roomers at Mrs. Murphy's in Carson City in late 1861 were with Col. F.W. Lander when he brought the Pyramid Lake War to a peaceful end. Indeed, civil engineer Will Wager was with Lander when they came under Indian musket fire in 1850. Will died suddenly in October, 1861, and on that day was praised in a letter by Sam, (q.v.). Burche, Lander's disbursing agent in 1860, was named Assistant Indian Agent for the Pyramid Lake region in late December 1861, because of his tie to Lander,who was respected by the Northern Paiutes as a friend. So it would be hard to believe that Sam was unaware of detail of that war. Clemens' friend Gus Oliver, called "Oliphant" in Roughing It, in two letters written at the time of Twain's death, mentions passing the white crosses on graves near Williams' Station, and tells a tale of Twain's fear a day or so later when he was last of the group to awaken when they were surrounded on the desert by a group of hungry-but-peaceful Paiutes. (see Paine) Sam Clemens, and indeed the whole general populace, remained fearful of the Indians, moreso of the Northern Paiutes than the Washoes, who by 1861 had stopped shooting settlers.
In the summer of 1862, while Sam was living in Aurora, that area's sheriff was among those killed by Southern Paiutes as a fresh war began in nearby Owens Valley. Because of his ties to his brother, acting governor at the time, Sam was involved with management of military weapons from Fort Churchill during the opening of hostilities.
Later at the Enterprise, Mark Twain would write ill of a man who left a shirt from a smallpox victim where an Indian found it, wore it, and began a deadly epidemic in that tribe.
Sam Clemens was a man of his times, with perhaps more reason that those far from the frontier to fear the Indians; just as many Americans today fear anyone who might be Muslim.    Bob Stewart, Carson City 


   

 On Tuesday, December 30, 2014 12:59 AM, Scott Holmes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 

 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.