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".