I seem to have misplaced a reference and hope someone can point to it for me. Sam Clemens and party traveled on the Northern Pacific Railroad from Helena, MT to Spokane, WA. I recall reading that an officer of the company had sent a letter providing for this trip and allowing the party to avoid a 300 mile journey along JJ Hill's line, the Montana Central, a spur of the Great Northern Railroad. They re -boarded the Great Northern line in Spokane. I'd would appreciate the details about this letter: who the officer was, where it was sent from, etc. I thought I'd seen mention of it on the Mark Twain Project site, or in Eccentricities of Genius or even in Robert Cooper's book, "Around the World with Mark Twain".